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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



#Books By Re?. I B. Calpeppet* 

Some Women I Have Known, Cloth 75 

44 " " Paper.... 40 

This Is one of those rare books that, like some men's 
sermons and lectures, make you laugh and cry by turns, 
thas some soul-full passages that fairly bedew your cheeks 
and so blind you with tears that you must collect yourself 
a bit before you proceed. Then there are humorous strains 
that convulse the reader with laughter. It pictures 
"Mother" and "Wife" so charminglp as to reach the 
soul'i depths of anyone not soul-less. 

"Malice" and "The Black Horse" 10 

Here are two inimitable sermons by the great evan- 
gelist. In their presentation before audiences thousands 
have been stirred to better lives. The booklet is selling 
so fast that the latest edition was 5,000 copies. Every 
preacher and Christian worker should scatter it. 

The Wandering Lover, or Christ Enthroned... 10 
Describes a soul seeking its Lord. 
Backsliders 10 

Ah! how this sermon makes a man search his heart to 
see if he is up-to-date in his religious experience. 

To Men Only 10 

This powerful appeal should be put in the hands of 
every man. It does a work among men that is much needed 

Just For Ghildren 05 

Tells of the author's conversion in early life. It 
charms the children. 

The above in paper only 75 cents; or with u Some 
Women," in cloth, for $1.00. Order now. 

Pickett Pablistting Co., gBJSSfiffitBk. 



A Remarkable Book 

SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN 

% * BY % % 

REV. J. B. CULPEPPER. 

CLOTH, 75c. %% PAPER, 40c. 

Here is a most remarkable book. It grips 
the reader from the first pa^e and holds 
him to the last. Chapters on "Mother," 
"Catharine,'' "My First Circuit Mother," 
"A Bottle of Tears," etc., etc., are just 
simply wonderful. The book is worthy of 
an immense circulation. 

SOME WORDS CF COMMENDATION 

A leading Presbyterian minister in Kentucky said be- 
fore a large audience, "I heartily wish I could giveaway 
i ,o°o copies of that book. I know it will bless every 
home it enters." 

A Presbyterian minister in Mississippi said: "That 
chapter on 'mother' will make me love Bro Culpepper 
forever.". 

When seated at tie dinner table another preacher's 
wife said: "Why, husband, what is the matter with your 
eyes?" "Wife, I have been reading Bro, Culpepper's 
book, 'Some Women/ and have been laughing and 'boo- 
hooing' for two hours." 

A Georgia mother wrote: "Send me another copy of 
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one, and I can't get to it at all." 

A young woman from Wisconsin writes: "Our large 
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around and have enjoyed it very much. We all 
thank you for writing it," 



STIRS EVERY READER THROUGH AND THRO 06 L 



BOOKS 



QEORQE D. WATSON. 



White Robes, 50 cts. 

Presenting very clear definitions of the difference between 
pardon and purity, cleansing and growth, partial and perfect 
love. 

Holiness Manual, 25 cts. 

Containing twenty-five Bible-readings, with proof texts 
carefully setting forth the various stages of grace. Specially 
helpful for young converts. 

Coals of Fire, 50 cts. 

Containing luminous expositions from the Old Testament 
on the deep things of Christian experience, including an an- 
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ligious classic for advanced believers. 

Love Abounding, $1.00 

Containing Sermons and Bible expositions stenographically 
reported as delivered. 

Secret of Spiritual Power, ... 50 cts 

This book deals particularly with the operation of the Holy 
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Soul Food, 50 cts. 

Treating of spiritual nourishment and the life ofpure faith 
ms developed in language and affection and suffering and 

grayer and special providence. A book that touches the 
eart of the Christian in its inner depths. 

Pure Gold, 50 cts. 

This book treats of the rich golden traits that constitute a 
real Bible character. It is heart searching and soul-stirring. 

Fruits of Canaan, 10 cts, 

Contains chapters on personal experience and how to grow 
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Beauty for Ashes, 10 cts* 

Treating of how persons lose their Christian experience and 
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Types of the Holy Spirit, 10 cts* 

A carefully written book on the different Scripture em- 
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and communion. 

Steps to the Throne, 60 cts. 



, BOOKS FOR BIBLE STUDENTS 

By EVANGELIST L L PICKETT. 

Highly Commended* Thousands Sold* 

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A strong book ; one of the best. — Rev, J. F. Anderson. 

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LEAVES FROM THE TREE OF UFE*-Full of Bible Troth 
and rich in Gospel light* Cloth* $1*00* 

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breathes in every line, a diligence that spared no labor or pains in 
their preparation, and an evangelistic fervor that is felt all along by 
the responsive reader; while we might differ here and there from 
the author's exegesis on minor points, we heartily commend his 
soundness in doctrine and the perspicuity and effectiveness of his 
r.ethod." — Bishop Fitzgerald. 

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OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

The Danger Signal $i oo 

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Why I do Not Immerse IO 

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The Christian Home, including a sermon by Rev. Geo. Stuart, 10 

FOR SAU5 BY 

PICKETT PUBLISHING CO., 

LOUISVILLE. KY. 



THE HEAVENLY LIFE 



BY 




GEORGE D: WATSON, 

Author of Soul Food, Pot of Oil, Steps to the Throne, The Age to 

Come, Our Own God, Spiritual Ships, Pure Gold, Coals of Fire, 

Love Abounding, White Robe, Holiness Manual, etc. 

To which is added: 

Preach the Lord's Coming, by E. P. Marvin. 
Kadesh-Barnea, by Rev, Evan H. Hopkins. 



Cloth, 50c, paper, 20c 



[Copyrighted, 1904, by Pickett Pub. Co,, Louisville, Ky.] 



PICKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
Louisville, Ky. Greenville, Tex, 



fK 



| LIBRARY of CON&RES 
Two Cooles Received 
JUL 8 J904 
Q Cooyrfcht Entry 

CLASS &- XXc. No. 

7 COPY B 



Si& 



PUBLISHERS PREFACE. 



In -each generation God raises some few saints who 
discern truth more deeply than their fellows ; rare spirits 
to whom He opens truths long hidden from the world, 
and such as are specially needed for the generation. 
These are marvelous times. Not only is the material 
world all agog, but the spiritual is also astir. The com- 
mercial spirit is materializing the race, and the churches 
frequently have more of form, ceremony, wealth, social 
position and prestige than of religious fervor, spiritual 
discernment and holy aggressiveness. The age is evil 
(Gal. 1 :4), but the coming of Jesus in kingly glory is 
nearing, and God is raising up men of far-seeing capac- 
ity who are unfolding the deep truths of revelation as 
the needed lessons for the age. Lovers of the Word di- 
vine will surely welcome these pages. They are full of 
deep, soul-nourishing truth, that will prove a great in- 
centive to prayer, meditation and holy aggressiveness. 
We bespeak for the chapters that follow an attentive 
reading by all who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity. 



** 



^ 

X 



-f 



CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

The Heavenly Life 5 

CHAPTER II. 
Steps to Holiness. 22 

CHAPTER III. 
Two Kinds op Love 28 

CHAPTER IV. 
Eepoet of the Twelve Spies 36 

CHAPTER V. 
Stages in the Heavenly Life 50 

CHAPTER VI. 
Proofs of Humble Love 64 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Ministry of Sorrow 72 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Heavenly Esther 80 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Redemption of the Body 87 

CHAPTER X. 
Making Hp Jewels 95 

CHAPTER XL 
Christ Calling the Bride 108 

CHAPTER XII. 
Divine Recollection Ill 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Joys of Heaven 117 



CHAPTER L 



THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 



"Like the days of heaven upon earth." This is the 
promise the Lord gave to Israel when they went into 
Canaan, if they would obey Him (Dent. 11:21). The 
heavenly life, and the heavenly kingdom are all alike; 
they are not of, or out from, this world, but they are 
to come down from God, out of the heavens, and exist 
on this earth. All true life on this earth went into bank- 
ruptcy with the fall of Adam. Since then, all true life 
is from above, and founded in redemption. There is a 
passage in Col. 3 :l-4 which contains a wonderful set- 
ting forth of the heavenly life. Three great facts are 
stated regarding the heavenly life, namely: It is a 
supernatural life, a hidden life, and then a life to be 
revealed. 

1. It is a Supernatural Life. "If ye then be risen 
with Christ, seek those things which are above, where 
Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affec- 
tion (or, more literally, your imagination) on things 
above." 

Here we have the great secret of the heavenly life, 
in that it is a life in union with Christ, a life that flows 
into us from having our spirits grafted into Christ by 
the Holy Ghost, a life which incessantly flows down inte 
us, like the blood from the heart coursing down to the 

(5) 



6. Bible Truth Library. 

lower extremity of the body, so from the infinite Christ, 
who, during this dispensation, is seated at the right hand 
of God, His heavenly life comes streaming down to us. 
There are two words which we need clearly to under- 
stand at the outset in this exposition. The first word is 
"risen." We inquire what is meant by being "risen with 
Christ." It is not the same word as that used for the 
resurrection. The Greek word for resurrection is "ana- 
stasio" from "ana" (again), and "stasis" (to stand up), 
and is used especially to mean the resurrection, or the. 
standing up again of the dead body that was laid down 
in the grave. A great many people, not having accu- 
rate knowledge of Scripture, speak of the soul's conver- 
sion as being a resurrection, and some call it "the first 
resurrection." This is a mistake, as the first resurrec- 
tion spoken of in Scripture is applied only to saints, and 
instead of the new birth being the first resurrection, it 
is distinctly revealed that we must be justified, regener- 
ated and sanctified in order to have a place in the first 
resurrection. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in 
the first resurrection." (Eev. 20:6.) When we are 
awakened and born of the Spirit, our human spirits, 
which have been dead in sin, do rise up from moral 
death, but it is not a rising again like the standing up 
of a dead body that had previously stood upright in 
living vigor ; hence this word, "to be risen with Christ," 
does not in any sense take the place of the resurrection 
of our bodies, nor does it imply that fanatical notion 
that we are now glorified, and will nerer die. It is 
the moral, the spiritual being, that has ri ;en from a 
state of nature and sin into a state of grace by a living 



The Heavenly Life. 7 

faith in the ascended Savior. Another word we need 
to understand, is the expression, "Where Christ sitteth 
at the right hand of God" So many people speak of 
Christ as at present sitting on His own throne, which is 
entirely unscriptural. Every passage in the Bible de- 
scribing the present location of the glorified body of 
Jesus speaks of Him as being "on the Father's throne," 
"at the right hand of the throne of God," "at the right 
hand of the majesty on high," and the Father saying to 
Him during this present age, "Sit thou at my right 
hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool." Thus 
every Scripture speaks of Christ in this age as at the 
right hand of the Father, on the Father's throne. But 
on the other hand, every single Scripture that speaks 
of Christ sitting on His own throne, uniformly fixes the 
time of His occupancy of His throne at His second com- 
ing. So, be careful never to confound the sitting of 
Jesus at the right hand of the Father in the present age, 
with the sitting of Christ on His own Messianic throne 
in the age to come. With this explanation of these two 
words, let us notice more particularly the heavenly life 
the true believer has in this dispensation, by virtue of 
being in heart, and by a living faith, united to Christ. 
All life is a fathomless mystery. The life in a grain of 
corn, or an egg, or the root of a tree, is hidden from 
all our five senses, from all science, from all compre- 
hension, and as deeply shrouded in God's omnipotence 
as the life of any plant, or animal, or angel in the most 
distant world or space. God only knows what life is. 
He alone can originate life, and establish the laws by 
which every kind of life can reproduce itself. When we 



8 Bible Truth Library. 

are regenerated, the life of Christ is imparted to our 
human spirits, through the organ of the human heart 
and by the agency of the Holy Ghost. We are told in 
Scripture that the Father gave His Son power to have 
life in Himself, and that the Son gives His life to those 
who truly 'believe in Him. This imparted divine life is 
more than thought ; it is more than action, for it leads 
to action; it is more than all good works, for it is the 
seed from which all the good works sprout, just as the 
life of a tree is more than the leaves and the fruit which 
it produces. The essence of this heavenly life is Divine 
love communicated to our spiritual organism. Just as 
trees and animals and men are living organisms, so the 
soul is a living organism, into which the life of Christ 
is injected through the living word of promise. This 
heavenly life has instinctive affinities for the super- 
natural. It has modes of nourishment, and laws of 
growth, and possibilities of celestial flower and fruitage, 
similar to other species of life. In a certain sense, men 
may live many kinds of lives. Some live a political, oth- 
ers a scientific life; yet others live a financial life, by 
which the ruling passion subsidizes to itself all the ener- 
gies and capabilities of the man. Just so, it is possible 
to live a love life, even in the human as well as the di- 
vine. For instance, here is an excellent woman who is 
in love with, and espoused to, a true gentleman. It is 
expedient, in order to gain an immense fortune, that he 
leave his native land, also the object of his love, and 
cross the seas to some distant country, there to spend a 
few years in patiently looking after his estate. When 
he goes away, the heart, the thought, the imagination — 



The Heavenly Life. 9 

in one sense, the very life of the woman that loves him, 
goes along with him to that distant land, and she more 
truly lives in his life and with him in that distant land, 
than with the people and in the locality where her body 
sojourns. This is the exquisite picture that is set forth 
in this passage of Scripture. If we are thoroughly 
espoused to Christ and have His life in our hearts, then 
with His ascension to the right hand of God the Father, 
there goes up with Him the secret fountains of all our 
inner being; and our hearts, our thoughts, ris* with 
Him; our imaginations and longings, on* hopes and 
dreams fly toward Him, ever hovering around Him ; and 
we paint ideal pictures of Him and His glorious sur- 
roundings in that radiant land whither He has gone to 
gather the materials of His coming kingdom. The word 
"affection" in this passage is in the margin "mind." 
There are four Greek words translated mind — one signi- 
fies the apprehending faculty, another the reasoning fac- 
ulty, another the judging or determining faculty, and 
yet another signifies the imaginative faculty, the power 
of fancy, the artistic or picture-making power of the 
mind. The word we are now speaking of, and which is 
translated "affection," is, in the Greek, "phronos" from 
which we make the word "phrenology," and signifies 
the imaginative part of the mind. Hence we are to seek 
after those things which pertain to Christ, and set our 
fond imagination to building thought-pictures of Jesus 
and Paradise and the saints and the angels and the com- 
ing of the Lord and the coronation day, of the rich and 
manifold rewards, of the glorious kingdom, and the city 
of pure gold, and of the long, bright ages that stretch 



10 Bible Truth Library. 

away in a successive series of ever-increasing splendor, 
world without end. If the mind must build air-castles, 
let us build them in the heavens. The true believer in 
this present life is like a diver in the sea. As a man 
puts on a diving bell and descends to the bottom of the 
ocean and is supplied with fresh air by an air pump on 
the ship over his head, so the believer is to put on the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost from heaven and live down in 
this lower world surrounded and pressed on every side 
by the dark waters of this present evil age, and draw 
down from the right hand of God the vital breath of 
heaven through the mediation of Jesus. The diver can 
live down in the sea, provided he has fresh air from 
the top, and provided the sea does not get into him. In 
like manner we can live the heavenly life down in this 
world, if we only get our prayer breath from Christ, and 
providing the world is kept out of us. 

2. It is a hidden life. "For ye are dead, and your 
life is hid with Christ in -God." The word "dead" here 
does not of course refer to the physical death, but to 
being crucified in heart with Christ, being dead to sin 
and to this present world. Conversion is a birth, and 
sanctification is a death. How strange that so many 
cannot see the difference between these two spiritual 
conditions. By the grace of sanctification we utterly die 
to this present world, its life, spirit, aims, honors, no- 
tions and desires, and we are thereby put out of joint 
with all its affairs and adjusted to another kingdom 
which is to come. When anything dies, its life passes 
out beyond the range of observation, and no one can 
follow it by any manifestation which it gives forth. 



The Heavenly Life. 11 

This is exactly the double thought stated here by the 
apostle. As long as a man is living his natural life, 
the world can recognize it, but when some day the stroke 
of the sword of God's Word slays that man's natural life 
and he dies to sin and all the world, he is, like a dead 
man, an offensive corpse in the eyes of the world, and 
his life has slipped away into such inscrutable secrecy as 
to be beyond the knowledge and all comprehension of 
his fellows. As I have said before, every form of life 
is a secret, hidden in fathomless depths beyond all hu- 
man knowledge. If no microscope and no science can 
find the life in a grain of wheat or a hen's egg, how 
much less is that divine life imparted to the soul by 
the Holy Ghost within the range of all human recogni- 
tion as to what it is, and how it subsists, and what are 
its everlasting results. As God only knows the love of 
God, so God alone knows the secrets of His own life. 

You will notice there is a double hiding of the heav- 
enly life referred to in this passage. Our life is hid 
with Christ, and then Christ, in this present age, is hid- 
den from the world up in the heavens with the Father. 
In our temperate zones, when winter comes on, vegeta- 
tion dies, the vines and fruit trees shed their foliage, 
and to all appearance to the eyes of men, they are dead. 
The life in the tree or vine runs back into the root 
and hides itself there; and then the root is hidden in 
the ground. This is an exact likeness of the double 
hiding of the heavenly life in this present dispensation. 
Jesus is the vine, the root, and true believers are the 
branches. We are now living in the winter of faith. 
When we are crucified with Christ it is like the blight 



12 Bible Truth Library. 

of a killing frost to the verdure and foliage of our 
natural, earthly lives, and we pass down into the bap- 
tism of death, and the world sees us no more, except in 
the language of David, "as dead men out of mind," and 
they cannot follow that swift retreat which our inner 
lives have made into Christ, the root of David, and the 
root of holy hearts and pure faith. And then they can- 
not see the Eoot, the immortal Jesus, for He is con- 
cealed beyond the blue sky, with the Father in the 
heavens. 

There are several Scriptures in which the time of 
Christ's absence from the earth is compared to winter, 
and His return compared to the coming of summer. 
(See Song of Solomon, 2:10, 11 j Matt. 24:32, 33.) 
It seems that very few Christians have enough discern- 
ment to heartily accept of this humiliating truth, that 
in order to be locked up in this hidden life of Christ, we 
must really die a death that will make us as uninterest- 
ing to men as trees stripped of all their gay foliage by 
the blasts of winter are dull and unattractive to the 
natural eye. So many people want a kind of religion 
that is attractive to the world, being ignorant of the fact 
that neither Jesus nor the apostles had that fascinating- 
kind, but their very heavenly beauties were offensive to 
men, and they were hunted like wild beasts. The only 
religion that looks beautiful to the world is that which 
is invented by the devil. Christians who are so eager 
to make a good impression on men, always fail to make 
a good impression in heaven, and in spite of themselves 
the secret desire to have a religion that pleases men is 
an offensive displeasure to Almighty God. Jesus, to the 



The Heavenly Life. 13 

world, is a leafless, bloomless "root out of a dry 
ground/' and He never becomes "the Eose of Sharon/' 
or "the Lily of the valley/' except to anointed eyes — to 
those who are baptized into His death by the Holy Ghost 
and enter that hidden life, of which this present world 
knows nothing at all. 

Those whose hearts are locked up with Jesus walk 
this earth in the present age as princes in disguise. They 
move around in the temporal duties of life like private 
detectives in a distant and unfriendly nation. They aro 
breathing prayers, and thinking thoughts, and nursing 
hot fires of love, and ruminating on vast and amazing 
events that stretch over coming times and distant worlds. 
They are silently loading themselves up with a divine 
dynamite, that Daniel and Jesus both tell us will some 
day grind the kingdoms of this present world to powder. 
Their joys are hidden, for it is written "that a stranger 
doth not intermeddle with it." And their sorrows, also, 
are cloistered in the ear and bosom of God, for they 
know they need not look to the people of the world, and 
not even to the people of the church, for heart-felt sym- 
pathy ; and so, like venturesome pioneers, they leave the 
crowded walks of life and traverse the great, solitary 
mountains, and take up claims on new and unexplored 
territory, and hold communion with the unseen God, 
and are more at home amid the great snowy mountain 
peaks of the divine perfection, than with the crowds that 
live only for the flesh and time. 

The saints are called in Scripture "the hidden ones." 
Their life is doubly hidden, in the Son and in the Father. 
God says to them, "Call unto me, and I will show you 



14 Bible Truth Library. 

great and hidden things." Their life is constantly fed by 
secret prayer. Their good deeds are to be folded in such 
quiet modesty, that the left hand (the goat) shall not 
know what the right hand (the sheep) doeth. The 
prophet says of the Almighty, "Verily, thou art a God 
that hidest thyself," and we are told on several occasions 
that "Jesus hid himself" from the crowd. God is work- 
ing, as it were, by stealth, in this present age, and moves 
softly amid the affairs of life, as if shod with wool. The 
uncrucified life is not hidden, but showy, and makes 
great appearances, and seeks to be known, whether in 
church or in state. When we sink into God, like sub- 
marine ships down in the sea, we pass out of sight of 
the natural world and the natural man. 

3. The heavenly life is to be revealed. "When. 
Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear 
with Him in glory." Please notice that the unfolding 
of all the secrets, and graces, and powers, and fruitage 
of the lives of the saints, is put right in connection with 
the return and visible appearing of the Son of man. 
All the Scriptures that bear on any one given thing al- 
ways agree in their teaching on that subject. Hence, 
throughout all Scripture the second coming of Christ 
is referred to as the time when all hidden things shail 
"be manifested," "appear," "be revealed," and openly 
seen and known. It is at the time when Christ comes 
again, that "the thoughts of all hearts are to be re- 
vealed," when all secret prayers are to be "rewarded 
openly," when all faithfulness and unfaithfulness is to 
receive an open attestation, "when every hidden thing 
shall be brought to light," and when "the vail that now 



The Heavenly Life. 15 

covers all flesh shall be taken away/' and when "the 
mystery shall be finished/' and when "they shall see eye 
to eve in Zion ," and when "we shall know even as we 
are known." 

It will astonish you to take a concordance and hunt 
up the words "reveal" and "manifest/' and kindred 
terms, and find how full the Bible is on what is to be 
made visible when Jesus returns and openly shows Him- 
self to all the nations. That is when Paul expressly de- 
clares this heavenly life, which is now doubly hid, shall 
appear, with all things pertaining to it, in visible glory. 
God is forever working from the unseen to the visible, 
from darkness to light, from the secret to the known, 
from mystery to manifestation, from the inner to the 
outer. He first created the substance of the universe, 
and afterwards He said, "Let there be light." He first 
gave the shadow of good things to come, and then re- 
vealed the substance in Jesus. The Jehovah-Messiah 
was in this world, talking to prophets, giving laws, in- 
spiring Scripture, receiving worship, and arranging 
providence, for four thousand years, and then was made 
flesh and became visible, and was seen and heard and 
touched by thousands, and visibly ascended to heaven till 
the time when His kingdom also shall become visible. 

Human theology has coined a great many doctrines 
exactly opposite to the Bible, and because human nature 
is contrary to God, these unscriptural doctrines find 
ready acceptance by the majority of even professed 
Christians. One of these unscriptural doctrines con- 
cerning the future state is, that all things are going to 
be sublimated into a vague intellectualism and idealism, 



16 Bible Truth Library. 

away from the solid and definite and sensible creation 
which God instituted at the beginning, and pronounced 
it very good. Swedenborgianism is simply old heathen 
Brahmanism remodeled and mixed with some Bible 
truth, and it accordingly contradicts the literal, historic 
facts of Scripture, and denies that there will be any 
literal resurrection of the dead body, or a visible return 
of the glorified humanity of Jesus. It is only one of 
the demon kind of last-day religions of the intellect and 
fancy, and, like what is falsely called "Christian Sci- 
ence" and Theosophy, teaches a lie under the pretense 
of presenting a religion so fine, so etherial, so intellectu- 
al, so exquisitely and sublimely spiritual, as never to be 
contaminated with anything so gross as the blood shed 
out of the real body of Jesus, or with a real resurrected 
human body, or with a literal heavens and new earth, 
be their skies ever so blue, or the mountains and plains 
ever so filled with vernal beauty, and singing birds and 
happy, God-loving, substantial generations of men. 
Thousands of elegant religious teachers in these latter 
days are getting too fine to believe in the plain, old- 
fashioned words of the God that made them. The most 
popular teaching in these heretical days, is that every- 
thing is traveling toward a lofty, intangible, invisible, 
inaudible sort of intellectualism — a kind of thin ghost- 
smoke of God's great creation.. Now, the fact is, that 
all creation, and all Scripture, and all history, is directly 
the opposite of such foolish teaching. 

We are moving toward the age of open revelation, 
of glorious manifestation, when everything and every 
creature will be more distinctly recognized and more 



The Heavenly Life. 17 

intensely individualized, than in the present age. Every- 
thing in creation travels from secrecy to open manifesta- 
tion, and from indefinite thought and force toward well- 
rounded, well-defined life and action, to solidity of per- 
sonality and character. 

Creation was first formless, and in darkness; then 
came the moving of the Holy Ghost to produce solid 
forms and life; next came the outshining of light (Gen. 
1 :l-3). Every building on earth today, the palaces, the 
great monuments, the vast bridges, the swift-flying 
steamships, and palatial railway trains, at one time were 
only thoughts, vague ideas, little, dreamy inventions that 
teased some busy brain, till, step by step, the unseen ideas 
became visible, and shadowy imaginations sailed forth 
and anchored and developed themselves into forms oi 
solid grandeur. The statues, the poems, the paintings, 
and the mighty music that charm millions today, were 
once silent feelings and fancies that fluttered noiselessly 
in some soul. The sinful thought of today becomes the 
open, solid crime of tomorrow. The unknown loving 
or heroic desire in the heart of a child comes forth in a 
few years in open manifestation of the matchless deeds 
of a Wesley or a Washington. 

When we speak of the return of Jesus as being the 
time when His kingdom shall break: forth into a sudden 
and visible glory over all the earth, and when the glori- 
fied "saints shall rule the nations with a rod of iron," 
in the exact language of Jesus, thousands of professing 
Christians, who only see one edge of prophetic truth, 
seem horrified, and begin to talk about Christ's king- 
dom not being of this world, and its being only a spir- 



18 Bible Truth Library. 

itual kingdom, and that it would degrade the dignity 
of Jesus and saints to live and reign on a visible and 
material world. In most cases these very people are 
swayed by love of money, love of church office, and 
church honor, and fine houses, and furniture, and poli- 
tics, and society pride, loaded down with the earth and 
carnality, but pretending to have a religion that is too 
sublimated and etherial to walk on a redeemed planet, 
or touch the precious body of the glorified Jesus. Cer- 
tainly Christ's "Kingdom is not of the world/' or, as the 
Greek has it, "out from the world"; neither was Jesus 
of the world, but He lived and died on it without losing 
His holiness, or one trait of His matchless character; 
and according to Scripture He will live here again. The 
Bible is not of the world, but it is in the world, and be- 
ing circulated by millions of copies. The saints, Jesus 
tells us, are not of the world, even as He Himself is not 
of the world, but they are in the world, and about fifty 
passages of Scripture inform us that in the coming age 
they will "inherit" and "possess" and "judge" and 
"rule" the world. The Son of God and the glorified 
saints can live on this green earth, and under these azure 
skies, when the moral conditions are made perfectly 
right, just as easily, just as honorably, just as beauti- 
fully, just as righteously, and a hundred times more 
scripturally, than on some imaginary, etherial cloud of 
mystical Swedenborgian dreamland. 

The kingdom of Jesus is just like Jesus. For many 
centuries He was in this world before He became visible 
on it in a human form. In like manner, His kingdom 
has for many centuries been unseen as a spiritual force 



The Heavenly Life. 19 



a 



of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" 
in the hearts of His true subjects, but that kingdom, 
like the King, is to come down from heaven and come 
forth in the first resurrection as a visible body, and dis- 
place, according to Daniel, every other kingdom on 
earth, and occupy the territory. The lives of all the 
saints, long hidden, will then appear, and all their char- 
acters, and prayers, and good works, and variegated 
graces, and numberless shades and traits of experience, 
will be openly manifested in cloudless light and uncon- 
fused personality. Do we dream of the sweep of this 
prophetic word, that "our life shall appear" (become 
visible) when Christ shall appear in His glory ? The se- 
cret fountains in the soul, the processes of our salvation, 
our repentances, and consecrations, and prayers, and 
spiritual struggles, and complex movings and experi- 
ences, and stages of growth in grace, and efforts of obedi- 
ence and charity, will all come forth, in some way, un- 
known to us, but as well-defined about our personality 
as the qualities of light are untwisted and hung out in 
the rainbow on a summer cloud when the storm has 
passed over. 

What is more beautiful in the vegetable world, than 
a peach orchard drenched with pink blossoms on a lovely 
spring day ? Now, suppose an Icelander, who never saw 
a peach orchard, were to visit some of our Southern 
States in the winter, and a fruit grower should take 
him out to see a large peach orchard, utterly stripped of 
leaves, with the ground frozen, and all the trees looking 
like crooked, dead sticks stuck in the ground. On be- 
ing told that he was looking at a magnificent and valua- 



20 Bible Truth Library. 

ble peach orchard, he would likely curl his lip in scorn 
at the ungainly sight. The proprietor might expatiate 
eiloquently on the value and merits of that orchard, but 
the Icelander would see nothing in it. Let the samo 
traveler from the frigid zone visit that orchard in April 
or May, and find it in full bloom, he would feast his eyes 
upon a beautiful picture beyond all his dreams. In the 
winter the life of those trees is hidden in the roots, and 
the roots are hidden in the earth, and the sun was far 
away beyond the equator. When the sun returns from 
the tropic of Capricorn, and comes toward the North, 
then the secret life in those hidden roots rises with the 
coming spring, and comes forth in open manifestation, 
clothing those seemingly dead, crooked sticks with gor- 
geous beauty and flowery robes of grace and color and 
fragrance. This is but one of the Creator's mute proph- 
ecies of things to come in those sanctified "trees of 
righteousness" planted by His own hand in the garden 
of grace. The saints are now living in their winter; 
and they look insignificant, deformed, and uninteresting 
to their fellows, and their life is deeply hidden. But 
when Jesus, who is their life, returns, He will bring the 
immortal spring morning, and the secret life in His 
saints will bloom forth in such colors of glory, of honor, 
of radiance, of princely authority, of fragrant love, that 
the very angels will shout for joy, the nations of the 
world will stand aghast in terrified bewilderment, and 
Satan and his demons, abashed and smitten, will hie 
them to the abyss for a thousand years, and the saints 
themselves will tremble with amazement and adoration 
that they should be so honored and loaded down with 



The Heavenly Life, 21 

glory, like the twigs on orange and coffee trees that bend 
beneath the weight of their immaculate and odorous 
blossoms. Then will come to pass the saying that is writ- 
ten, "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair 
as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army 
with banners ?" That is when Jesus "shall come down 
into His garden, to see His fruit trees in the valley, and 
to watch the branches of the true vine to nourish, and 
to see the pomegranates bud with their beautiful red 
bell-shaped flowers." Song of Solomon 6 :10-11. Thus 
the heavenly life is above nature, but not contrary to 
nature as God first created it. It is a hidden life, but 
not a powerless or inactive one, but most full of Divine 
energy. And it is a life that is to come forth in a most 
perfect revelation of beauty and glory, "at the appear- 
ing of the Lord. 



» 




CHAPTER II. 

STEPS TO HOLINESS. 

At the time we are passing through any phase of 
Christian experience, it is difficult for us to understand 
or to classify the events and phenomena of our spiritual 
life. But after we get through, we can look back 
through the medium of an illuminated mind, and mark 
the steps and the processes in such a way as to lend a 
helping hand to others who have not yet passed over 
the journey. The various steps that a soul takes from 
•the time of its conversion to its establishment in the 
fullness of the Spirit may be described as follows. 

1. There springs up in the heart of the young 
Christian a general desire to grow in grace. His views 
of growth are vague and as he looks forward upon the 
Christian journey, a silver mist hangs over the dis- 
tant horizon, and he catches but faint glimpses of the 
distant mountains which he is to scale by the grace 
of God. He does not apprehend clearly the hindrances 
in his own nature to spiritual progress, nor does he 
apprehend in any definite way the promises which are 
made in the Bible of the fulness of salvation. But there 
as an abiding desire and purpose in his heart to get 
better, to increase in faith, and hope, and love, to be- 
come stronger and more useful. But his whole thought 
and feeling are characterized by indistinctness. 

(22) * 



The Heavenly Life. 23 

2. After awhile there comes to his apprehension the 
special need of some grace or virtue in which he seems 
to be lacking. Amid the daily vicissitudes of life, and 
the ordinary trials, and annoyances, and temptations, 
and besetments which hem him around, he is made to 
feel that he needs some special grace by which he can 
get a more easy victory in daily life. Sometimes it 
may be a deep sense of the need of a forgiving spirit, 
or of being more humble, or of being very patient, or of 
being more self-possessed, or of having a special 
strength in faith, or love, or calmness of spirit. One 
person will feel the need of one particular grace more 
than others, and another person will have a special 
sense of lacking some other grace. But there will come 
in some way, a pinching sense of need on the line of 
some one of the fruits of the Spirit. 

3. The next step in the experience will be the souPs 
discovery that there is an internal hindrance in the 
heart to the very grace it is seeking after. This is the 
way in which the Spirit leads the soul to discover the 
great under-world of the latent carnal mind. And 
many a Christian, who could not believe at first that he 
had the remains of inward sin in him, is led to make 
that discovery, by finding that something in his nature 
lies right in the way of his progress in grace, and 
strangles his peace, or joy, or liberty. God works on a 
scheme of indirections, or in a circuit of truth. This 
is the way he works in nature, in the currents of the 
sea, and the blowing of the winds, and the circuits of 
electricity, and in the laws of the mind. Thus he works 
in the realm of grace. The believer had his eye on 



24 Bible Truth Library. 

obtaining some rich and beautiful graces, and pursued it 
with zest, but in that pursuit he found the barriers to 
obtaining it within his own heart. And thus the Holy 
Spirit has led him to search into his inner nature by the 
indirect route of hunting for some golden grace of 
which he sees his need. If a Christian in his early love 
should be told that the reason he cannot grow faster in 
grace is because he has various forms of evil in his 
heart, he would not believe it. But in the pursuit of 
higher degrees of love he is driven back to search the 
foundations of his heart in a manner which nothing else 
could have made him do. 

4. While making this introspection in his affections 
and tempers to find out what is the particular besetting 
evil that prevents his growth in grace, he makes a great 
discovery that well-nigh horrifies him. He finds that 
instead of having one besetment which checks his Chris- 
tian progress, there is a whole world of carnality in 
his nature. These outcroppings of one or two evil pro- 
pensities, which at first attracted his attention, were 
only like the mineral veins of a mine, they lead down 
into a dark region of corruption and blindness, and un- 
belief, which he hitherto did not dream was in him. 
Then he begins to understand that the whole body of 
sin as an evil principle, remains in his heart. This for 
the time being saddens his spirit, and causes a real 
grief in his soul. The very fact that he is born of God, 
and desires to love him more, causes him inexpressible 
sorrow of heart to find that his whole being is pervaded 
with a latent- yet positive evil. He then begins to see 
that many of his good deeds, and much of his Chris- 



The Heavenly Life. 25 

tian work, was tinged with selfishness, or subtle pride, 
or ambition, or a strain of vanity, or was mixed up with 
duplicity and double mindedness. This brings on the 
stage of what has been called the repentance of believers, 
that is, real grief over inward sin. 

5. Next there comes to this soul a thirst for the 
fullness of Scriptural purity. At first he began with 
a sense of the need of some one particular grace, but 
now he sees that he needs a universal cleansing, not only 
from one form of evil, but from every variety of pride, 
and unbelief, and selfishness in every form. The light 
? of the Spirit is now widening in the horizon, and he 
sees that he needs something far more than to be sanc- 
tified in spots, his vision takes in the length and breadth 
of his whole nature, and sweeps the extent of his who]e 
life. Now he yearns for nothing short of a complete 
and universal cleansing. 

6. The next step in this process is, he begins to en- 
ter the region of entire yielding of self up to Ood. Not 
in the same way that he yielded to get pardon. This is 
a more profound and interior giving of himself over 
unlimitedly to the will of God. It is an itemized giving 
up, of point by point, and thing after thing, in his out- 
ward life, and inward life, a letting go of things in the 
past, and then in the future, and a resigning of circum- 
stances, and plans, and hopes, and anticipations, into 
the will of God. It is a yielding up of the inward af- 
fections, and day dreams, and opinions, and sentiments ; 
a turning over into God's hand of the very core of one'. j 
life, with all the contingencies, and the outcomes, and 
the possibilities of that life. Such a yielding up as 



26 Bible Truth Library. 

this can never be done except under the immediate 
guidance and searching illumination of the Holy Spirit. 
It is a thousand miles beyond human logic, or the mere 
utterance of words. It is a real, living transaction. 

7. When this itemized yielding up of the whole in- 
ner being to God is completed, then comes the hour of 
perfect trust in Jesus as a Saviour, and cleanser, and 
sanctifier. This faith has no struggle in it, it is a sweet, 
quiet rest in Jesus, a sort of divine, heavenly indiffer- 
ence as to what the outcome may be. Like a sleeping in- 
fant dropping its toy on the floor, the soul has quietly 
relaxed, and let go everybody and every thing, and 
peacefully rests upon the promise of God, which is the 
same to it as the bosom of God. Hence the highest 
type of faith is not exercise, but a ceasing from exercise, 
a supernatural repose in God, and a letting of the Holy 
Spirit do his work without having any anxiety to in- 
terfere with him. 

8. After awhile this soul will make another dis- 
covery concerning the Holy Spirit. At first he is fairly 
bewildered with the great blesing he has received, and 
can hardly see or talk of anything else except the bless- 
ing. But after learning certain spiritual lessons, it 
comes to recognize in a wonderful way the blessed Holy 
Spirit as a divine Person living within. Then he sees 
that his life is to take on the form of a most intimate, 
thorough and blessed companionship with a divine 
Person who lives in his own spirit. From this time on 
he does not rely upon any particular form of experience, 
but learns to confide in that blessed Comforter out of 
whose fullness flows all good experiences. He then 



The Heavenly Life. 27 

learns to commune with the Holy Ghost as he did not 
know how to do amid the first 'bewildering splendors of 
the sanctified state. He then learns to let the Holy 
Spirit use him for the glory of Jesus, and instead of 
trying to use 'God's grace and God's gifts, he gets into 
the secret of so corresponding with the inward monitions 
of the Comforter, and so understanding the mind of 
God, that ne yields himself continually, with great 
docility and humility, to be utilized by the blessed Holy 
Ghost who remains in his heart. This is the state that 
all sincere Christians have intimations of and desires 
for, but that so few of them seem to fully enter into in 
this life. But this is the state which is truly apostolical, 
and it is for all those who will obey God without fear 
and in humility. 



Ill 



CHAPTER in, 



TWO KINDS OF LOVE. 



The love of God poured into our hearts by the 
Holy Spirit is the sum and substance of all true religion, 
and everything else that belongs to the Christian re- 
ligion is either a step to this love, or else an effect that 
flows out from it. Faith would be useless if it did not 
lead us into a life of love, and all good works and zeal 
would be useless, and not acceptable to God, unless they 
were prompted and pervaded by His love. Hence in a 
comprehensive sense, there is really nothing but love 
in pure religion. Not only the most of human beings, 
but a great majority of nominal Christians do not dis- 
tinguish the difference between natural human love, and 
the love of God; and yet the difference is just as great 
as that between the human soul and the perfections of 
the Divine Being. Natural human love may resemble di- 
vine love in many things, for it is a created affection, 
made in the likeness of the divine, but in order to un- 
derstand the Spiritual life we need a clear discrimina- 
tion between these two kinds of love; the one human, 
the other divine; the one earthly, the other heavenly; 
the one natural, the other spiritual; the one temporal, 
the other eternal ; the one fallen and full of defects, the 
other holy and without blame. 

(28) 



The Heavenly Life. 29 

1. In the Greek Testament, the Holy Spirit has 
given us a strong distinction between these two kinds of 
love by using two separate words. The term "philos/ 
with its various forms, is the Greek word for natural or 
human affection, or that kind of love that springs up 
instinctively from relationship. The word "agape/' with 
its various forms, is the word for divine love, that i«, 
the temper, the disposition, the goodness, the interior 
heart-feeling of God. It is true the word "philos" is 
used a few times in connection with God to express His 
love for Jesus, but it is to be understood as expressing 
a love of relationship for the man Christ Jesus, the pa- 
rental affection for the humanity of our Saviour. It is 
also true that in a few places in the New Testa- 
ment the word "agape" is used to express the spotless 
sanctified affection of human beings for each other, and 
of love of husbands for their wives, but in such instances 
it implies that the whole heart of the perfect believer 
is flooded with the Holy Spirit, and that the natural 
human love is filled and overflowed with the divine love. 
With these explanations, the Scriptures make a clear 
distinction between the two kinds of love, and it is to be 
regreted that both of these words "philos" and "agape" 
are translated by the same word "love," for it prevents 
the common reader from discerning the peculiar force of 
God's word, and distinguishing the vast difference be- 
tween that which is human, and that which is divine. 
It could be wished that the word "philos" was always 
translated by the term affection, and then every one 
could get a clear vision of the mind of the Spirit in the 
Scripture. Every one who goes on the sea, will notice 



— 



30 Bible Truth Library. 

that when they are near the shore the water is a 
muddy or a light green complexion, but as soon as they 
get into deep water the color is a dark blue, and bo it is 
when we read the New Testament. Wherever we find 
human love, it is shallow and sometimes earthly, but 
when we cross over into that word "agape" we get into 
deep water, where the love is clear, and of a deep, rich, 
divine blue. Let us take just one sample from Scrip- 
ture : Jesus saith to Peter, Lovest thou me ? Have you 
"agape/' divine love, for me? Peter saith, "Yea, Lord, 
thou knowest that I love thee," philos; that is, that I 
have human affection for thee. Jesus saith again the 
second time, Simon, lovest thou me, "agape" have you 
divine love for me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord,, 
Thou knowest I love thee "philos" having a human af- 
fection for thee. Jesus kept using the word that indi- 
cated divine love, and Peter kept responding by that 
word which simply meant human affection, and so the 
third time when Jesus put the question, finding that 
Peter would not respond with the "agape" or divine 
love, He dropped down to the plain of Peter's soul, and 
put the question the third time, Lovest thou me? Using 
the word "philos" asking, Have you indeed human af- 
fection for me? This seemed to pierce Peter's heart 
more than the previous questions, and he said, "Lord 
thou knowest that I have human affection for Thee." 
That was just before Pentecost; but after Peter was 
purified, and filled with the Holy Spirit, he was lifted 
from the "philos" kind of love, into the regions of 
God's feelings and affections, and in his epistle he 
speaks of the domestic affections as being spiritualized, 



The Heavenly Life. 31 

and filled with divine love, and tells us to "have fervent 
charity," that is "boiling, divine love," "among your- 
selves." 

2. The human affection has its seat in the soul, or 
the natural mind, but divine love has its seat and op- 
eration in the spiritual part of our being. There is 
about as much difference between our spirits and our 
souls as there is between our souls and our bodies. Our 
soul or natural mind is that which opens up through 
the five senses to the external world, but our spirit is 1 
that part of us where lies the God-consciousness, or its 
inner feeling and intuitions which open up to the 
things of 'God, heaven, eternity, and holiness. There are 
myriads of people in civilized countries, educated, at- 
tending the church, reading books, taking active part 
in the affairs of the world, and intelligent about things 
of time and sense, but who know nothing whatever of 
the great spiritual world, and of that deep, hidden 
world of God's truth, the divine feelings, sympathies, in- 
tuitions, discriminations, compassions, harmonies, 
truths, moral beauties, and scriptural thoughts, which 
are just as real as, and far more rich and satisfactory 
than, all the world of matter or physical science, or po- 
litical power and glory. This vast spiritual world is 
never opened to any human being except by the great 
miracle of grace so awakening, purging, and illumin- 
ating the spiritual part of man's being. Just as the 
scientist, the poet, the mathematician, can look down 
on the lower animals, and say, "Poor things, if you only 
knew the glory of this world of mind, and intellect, and 
figures, circles, colors, and measurements, how happy 



32 Bible Truth Library. 

you would be," so the saint, filled in his inner spirit with 
the light and presence of the Holy Ghost, can look down 
upon poor worldlings, philosophers, politicians, and say, 
"0, poor things, if you only knew the purity, the tran- 
quility, the interior brightness, vastness, sweetness, and 
divine personalities that I see, and enjoy, and repose 
in, how happy you would be*" Thus as the human af- 
fection pervades the natural fleshly feelings, so the di- 
vine love pervades and possesses the spiritual nature, 
and flowing out through it governs the whole being. 

3. The only way we can enter into either of these 
kingdoms of human or divine love, is by being born into 
it. People often speak of "joining the church," but in 
reality nobody ever can "join" the true church of Jesus, 
for the natural way to get into it is by being born in- 
to it. Our children do not join our families, but they 
are born into them ; and so the only door- way into either 
the Christian church or kingdom of heaven, is by being 
born from above of the Holy Spirit. Love is what ought 
to be the normal feeling, or the living out-flow of any 
nature ; for instance, the life of the rose is poured forth 
in its perfume, which may be defined as the natural af- 
fection of the rose. It is a fact that every bird, or beast, 
or living creature, has a specific normal out-flow of feel- 
ing, emotion, or affection, which is the expression of 
its nature, and there are as many kinds of natural af- 
fection as there are kinds of nature in creation. Now, 
the only way for anything in creation to have the natur- 
al affection^ of a human being, is to be born with a hu- 
man heart and soul. 

In like manner, the only way to have the feeling, 



The Heavenly Life. 33 

the affection, or out-flowing disposition of the living 
God is for fallen men to be born again of the divine 
Spirit into the divine family relationship. Love is by 
birth, not by evolution or by development, either as re- 
gards human or divine love. The dog is the most af- 
fectionate animal of all the lower creation, and yet he 
can only love with a dog's nature. But suppose it were 
possible for the dog to be born over again, and born a 
boy, he would then have a human heart, with human 
love running out in all the higher, nobler, more intelli- 
gent channels of a human soul. Thus, unregenerated 
men and Adam's fallen race may be amiable, affection- 
ate, and possessed with many beautiful and attractive 
manners and dispositions, yet all their good qualities, 
multiplied a thousand-fold, and cultured to the finest 
pitch, can never be divine love, and can never develop 
into the love of God, or cross over that great gulf that 
separates between fallen human affection and the spot- 
less love in the divine nature; and it is only when 
human beings, on the condition of repentance and faith 
in Jesus are touched with the Holy Spirit, and born in- 
to the divine love, that they can ever experience that love 
which is from God. 

4. While there are some likenesses between human 
and divine love, there are also many contrasts. Human 
affection, even at its best, is weak, because it is condi- 
tioned on so many things in our life as, for example, 
heredity. Some children inherit very little natural af- 
fection, since it depends on education, on environments, 
health of body and various gifts of intellect ; and hence, 
in thousands of instances, natural affection breaks down. 



34 Bible Truth Library. 

Divine love is strong and fresh, and when the inward 
hindrances, such as inbred sin, doubt, and moral fear, 
are removed from the heart, and it can take entire pos- 
session, it turns the inner man into a moral giant of 
boldness and perserverance. Human affection is not in 
itself sinful, but it falls an easy prey to the fallen state 
of the heart, and almost universally is poisoned with 
selfishness, or greed, with fleshly lusts, ambition or ava- 
rice. So that while on the one hand we have beautiful 
instances of human love, even among the heathen and 
savages, as well as among the civilized and cultured 
classes, of unselfish benevolence and sacrifice even to the 
death, yet, on the other hand, the world is full of scenes 
where human love is a gigantic instrument of perverted 
passion and selfishness. On the other hand, divine love, 
not only introduced in the heart by the new birth, but 
perfected by the sanctifying baptism of the Holy Ghost, 
and filling the whole soul, is a constant fountain of com- 
passion, of charity for others, longing to save and bless 
all mankind, and is always thinking, praying, planning, 
and going forth in enterprises to lead souls to Jesus, 
to bless the poor, to purify the church, to evangelize the 
heathen, to lift up the fallen, to alleviate pain; for when 
divine love has its normal action through the human 
soul, its supreme gladness is in giving out for the ben- 
efit of others. Human love is soon exhausted, its foun- 
tains are not deep enough, it often dwindles into the 
poor sentiments of good wishes, but nothing more; 
whereas, divine love has in it a fountain of satisfaction, 
and can constantly increase, despite poor health, or pov- 
erty, or hard work, or bad treatment; and the other 



The Heavenly Life. 35 

things that often kill out human affection, can become 
the occasions for the love of God in the soul to increase, 
to deepen and sweeten with marvelous power. We were 
originally constituted in Adam to be vessels of divine 
love, and the various parts of our compound being of 
body, soul and spirit, never reach their normal state till 
entirely possessed and governed by the love of God, the 
feelings, and dispositions that run out in liquid rivers 
of light from the nature of God. Any effort to make 
the body or the mind to live right apart from the 
pure love of God, is simply legality or bondage to law; 
but when divine love becomes the supreme possession of 
a man's inner being, his physical and mental being will 
harmonize with God's law easily. Thus we need divine 
love to purify, elevate, and properly utilize the natural 
affections. This is the divine element that St. John 
speaks of when he says, "He that dwelleth in love, 
dwelleth in God." 



CHAPTBE IV. 



REPORT OF THE TWELVE SPIES. 



« 



r And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron, 
and to all the congregation of the children of Israel* 
unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought 
back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, 
and shewed them the fruit of the land." — Numbers 
13 :26. 

There is a world of instruction in the incidents that 
are touched upon in this chapter. 0, what a world of in- 
terest clusters around the action of the Jews. You know 
they marched from Mount Sinai right straight toward 
the land of Canaan, and God's design was that they 
should go right up into the land of Canaan, without 
crossing the river Jordan ; they were to go on the south 
side of the Dead Sea, so that there was no river at all 
to cross, only a valley. Kadesh is the name of the place 
that was on the boundary line, right between the wil- 
derness on one side and Canaan on the other, and when 
they came up to this boundary line, there they halted ; 
and from the boundary Kadesh they sent out twelve 
spies to spy out the land and bring back word again. 
The word ''Kadesh" means holiness. They took a 
straight line from the time of their conversion for the 
land of Canaan, and there was no break, there was no 
positive rebellion until they came to Kadesh, and there 

(36) 



The Heavenly Life. 37 

is where their faith and patience were tested. There the 
spies went out and brought back that wonderful report, 
of which we have an account in this lesson ; ten of these 
men bring back a miserable report of unbelief and re- 
bellion and hardness of heart, and two of the men 
bring back a minority report of faith and of patience; 
but the people, you remember, took sides with the ma- 
jority, and adopting the majority report they backed 
down from entering the land of Canaan, and from that 
time they began to wander forty years in the wilderness, 
and when they did cross over they did not cross over on 
the south side where the valley was, but they had to 
cross over on the north side, across the river. 

We learn from this thought that when a young con- 
vert comes out of Egypt and is delivered from the guilt 
and dominion of sin, and receives within him the tastes 
of divine love, under proper guidance he will take a 
straight line to Canaan, and when he comes to the boun- 
dary line of holiness his faith will be tested. Kadesh 
will always be the testing point of every one's faith ; and 
if the young convert under divine light, with a willing 
heart, will go over into Canaan, then he can go over 
without crossing the river; he can go over by simply 
crossing a valley; but if he draws back like the people 
here did and refuses to go over, he may have a long "up- 
and-down" life, with many missteps and terrible vicissi- 
tudes in his experience, and when he does enter he must 
enter through the severe crisis of the crossing of the 
river Jordan. In bringing back of the report from the 
land, we see here in the report of the ten men the prog- 
ress of unbelief. In reading this thirteenth chapter 



38 Bible Truth Library. 

clear through, and then reading the fourteenth chapter, 
it is amazing to gather up their ideas and see how their 
unbelief grows at every step. If you want to know the 
biography and the history of unbelief and see how it 
can grow and spread, you will see it in these two 
chapters. In bringing back their report these ten men 
gave quite a lengthy account of the land, the products, 
the climate, and the people ; but they bring in that ter- 
rible word about the giants; the giants are there, and 
in all the report that these ten men made, they never 
mentioned the name of God once. What a significant 
fact that is ! When Caleb and Joshua brought in their 
report they began by bringing in the Lord, and they 
said, "If the Lord will be with us we will still be able 
to go." The ten men on the other hand were talking 
about what we can do, we are not able, and we saw the 
giants, to whom we were as grasshoppers ; it is all we all 
the way through, and us and our. 

Their whole attention was directed to the resources 
of themselves, while Caleb and Joshua looked over 
themselves and mentioned God. That is so everywhere 
in the earth. Unbelief ! If you have unbelief in your 
heart it will always behave like these ten spies. It al- 
ways searches the human side, looks at what you can do, 
what you can be, what you can develop; ignores the 
cleansing ability of Jesus and ignores the almighty 
Holy Ghost. Then from that standpoint their unbelief 
gets worse and worse as they proceed, until it reaches 
the point where they take up stones to stone Caleb and 
Joshua. People say, I am all right, except I have un- 
belief in my heart. People think unbelief is a kind of 



The Heavenly Life. 39 

sickly thing that doesn't do much harm in the world. 
The unbelief of these ten men commenced by forgetting 
to mention God, but it wound up by being murderous. 
It so turns out that the men who brought in this re- 
port, that the very names of these men indicate their 
character. By looking at the names that these men 
bore, we get an insight into their inner character, and 
you never have the key to a man's life until you get the 
key of his inner character. Then you can unlock the 
man's conduct. So you take the ten spies that brought 
in this majority report, and see what their names im- 
ply, and here we have got the key-note of their failure 
to believe. Sometimes when men die they call in a 
committee of surgeons for a post-mortem examination. 
We want to hold a post-mortem examination on these 
ten men, and find out of what disease they died. 

The first name is "Shammua." The English of that 
name is "Fame." Now you see why that man did not go 
into the land of Canaan. His very nature, the key to 
his life, his whole inner character, was woven around 
a central thought of fame. Love of praise, love of no- 
toriety; he wanted to be great in the eyes of men; want- 
ed to make a great show; wanted to see his name in 
print and have it heralded through the earth; that is 
why that gentleman forget to mention God when he rose 
up and made a report of the committee. The fact is, 
his own name was so great in his eyes that he forgot to 
mention God, whereas the Bible says, "In the beginning 

God " In the eyes of the world fame is thought 

to be a virtue. Young men are taught to be famous; 
they are exhorted to make a big name for themselves. 



40 Bible Truth Library. 

We love the fame and honor of distinction, of being flat- 
tered. Why, there are thousands and millions of peo- 
ple that think it a virtue, and even nominal Christians 
think it is a virtue, but the very things that the world 
thinks to be great God despises. 

The true doctrine of the Bible is that we are to love 
and obey God. We are to trust him and let the Lord 
make our reputation, our character, our standing. The 
love of fame will keep any man in this world out of 
salvation. If you want a pure heart, if you want an in- 
ner rest of soul, if you want a deep and settled peace of 
mind, you must tear from your breast that miserable 
itch of hungering for notoriety. If you have a crav- 
ing to be famous in your little set, in the little circle 
where you are, I want to say that that is nothing less 
than the idolatry of worshiping yourself; it is no won- 
der that such souls die, no wonder that people do not 
give themselves up, when the fact is they are hungry 
for fame. That is why they cannot trust God. We 
must consent to be little and unknown and humble in 
order to enter the land of love. 

The next man's name was "Shaphat." The English 
of that word is "to judge." Mr. Shaphat was a man 
whose inner character and disposition was to get on a 
throne and put himself up, and be rendering judgment 
on all his brothers. He wanted to measure everybody 
by himself. He wanted to judge their motives, to 
judge their conduct, and thus he was so busy judging 
all his neighbors and family acquaintance, that he un- 
consciously got into the place of God. God is the 
judge; He alone knows; God alone can penetrate a hu- 



The Heavenly Life. 41 

man soul ; He only can turn on the seareh-light in your 
moral nature; and yet there are many people in the 
world that seem to have this disease of sitting in judg- 
ment on people. That is what kept that man out of the 
land of Canaan. People criticise this and that. I was 
kept out of the blessing of perfect love for some time 
because of the spirit of criticism, and yet I did not 
think I had it very bad ; but I want to say, friends, be- 
fore the Lord ever lets us have a clean heart, before 
ever he takes the burden from our soul, before he gives 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we reach a place where 
we are willing that all other people should be esteemed 
better than ourselves. 

As long as you are judging others you are taking the 
place of the Lord. You are sitting in the seat of the 
Lord, and are doing the work that doesn't belong to you, 
and the very spirit of judging human beings will for- 
ever keep you out of the land of Canaan, the land of 
Test. We must lay that aside. When you are judging 
people you are taking the place of God, and He will not 
allow anyone to take his throne. 

The next name was "Igal." The English of that 
word is "God will avenge." That is a very good name, 
apparently, but you look at the import of it. The name 
implies that this man Igal had in him a spirit of resent- 
ment and retaliation, but as he does not want to take 
the responsibility of executing the penalty against his 
enemies, he hopes God will do it. He is one of those 
men that think the Lord ought to go around with a 
club and beat people, and in his heart he wishes the 
Lord would smite certain ones to death. This name 



42 Bible Truth Library. 

signifies retaliation from God. In other words 2 this 
man would retaliate, but he either cannot, or is afraid 
to, and so he wishes that God would do it. How many 
times in your life have there been when you have felt, 
Oh ! if God would only kill some people, if God would 
only burn somebody's house down; I would not dare 
kill them myself, but somehow I wish that God would 
kill them! Do you know there is a killing spirit in 
there? Have you not been tempted, brother or sister; 
have there not been times in your lives when you have 
had that spirit in you, although you did not dare to be 
the executioner, but in your heart you somehow wished 
God would put some people under the guillotine? I 
have heard some men say that they wished God would 
kill all the saloon keepers; and even Martin Luther, 
before he got sanctified — he was a grand, good man — 
said once, "What a sight it would be to see the pope 
and his cardinals hanging in a row." You will find 
that people have in them that resentment which leads 
them to feel that they would not like to hurt certain 
people, but they wish God would. That man Igal could 
not go into the land of Canaan; and if we have that 
spirit in us we cannot get into perfect love. It must be 
given up. We must cast it down. All resentment and 
all bitterness must be laid aside. 

The next man's name was "Palti." The English for 
this is, "Deliverance of Jehovah." The meaning of 
this man's name forms the key to his conduct; it 
means in his case orthodox indifference; and so the 
man said, "The Lord will deliver us." We need not 
be in a hurry to go up into Canaan, it is the Lord's 



The Heavenly Life. 43 

work." A great many people say, "If the Lord wants 
to sanctify me, here I am." There is in them that 
indifferent, don't-care spirit that talks in an indolent 
way to God, as much as to say, If the Lord wants to 
do it, let him do it by main force. 

Indifference is one of the worst things that the word 
of God has to contend with. In the temperance cause, 
in the missionary cause, in revivals of religion, there 
are thousands who are willing to say "Amen," provided 
they do not have to give their time, or their zeal, or 
expend any of their strength, their money, or ability 
for the cause of God. They are orthodox, yet they 
■slumber on, and say, If the Lord wants to save the 
world, let him do so ; if he wants to sanctify us it's all 
right. 

No, friends, we must work with God; we must co- 
operate with his Holy Spirit. Hence the lazy, orthodox 
Palti never got into the land of holiness. 

The next name is "Gaddiel," which signifies 'For* 
tune from God." The key to that man's character was, 
he served the Lord for what he could make out of him. 
He was hunting for fortune, he was seeking wealth, and 
was keenly alive to his own well-being, he simply wished 
God to give him a good fortune. Fortune from God! 
He felt as if God's bounty and grace were the only 
means of piling up his wealth. There are so many of 
just such people in the world to-day. They look upon 
God as simply our servant, and so there are thousands 
who would like to be Christians, provided they couH 
make something by it; and some Christians would like 
to get into full salvation, provided they could make 



44 Bible Truth Library. 

something by the operation. I have known people to 
get into certain communities, and join certain churches, 
simply for the purpose of making gain; denying their 
conscience, denying their faith, getting away from their 
convictions, and for the sake of popularity, for the sake 
of worldly gain, they simply attach themselves to this 
church, or that, as an instrument of their own honor 
and glory. 

The idea of turning the blessed God into a money- 
making maebme ! Yet they did it in Paul's day right 
under the apostle's eyes. They said "they supposed that 
gain was godliness"; and I have heard men talk that 
way, that the more prosperity they have, the more God 
will bless them. To turn the Lord and his mercy and 
his love into a convenience for our welfare, and good 
fortune, is an awful degradation of grace, and if any 
one simply uses God as a means of having good for- 
tune, and good success, you can't get it. If we minis- 
ters seek the doctrine of holiness, in order merely to 
have a great revival, we will never get it. If we want 
the mighty power of God on us, simply for the piling 
up of big collections, we will never get it. Why? Be- 
cause we are then using the Holy Ghost, the blessed 
Spirit of God and his Son, as the means of good fortune. 
And this man died, and was buried in the desert sands, 
because he simply wanted God to give him good fortune. 

The next man's name was "Gaddi." He was worse 
than Gaddiel. The word gaddi simply means "good 
luck." Now Gaddiel wanted good fortune from the 
Lord. He dM have some idea of religion ; but the man 
Gaddi just wanted to have "good fortune;" he was 



The Heavenly Life. 45 

simply in for the big thing, God or no God. There is 
the key to that man's heart. Mr. Gaddi was desirous of 
success ; anything that would be brilliant, taking, popu- 
lar, successful, he was in for it. He has a great many 
followers. They will resort to any foolish thing, if it 
will only bring prosperity. Instead of worshiping God, 
our loving Lord, how many there are who worship re- 
ligious success ! Give to God your whole heart, whether 
you succeed or fail. By a careful study of the Bible you 
will find all through its pages that the grandest saints 
were those that never had seeming success. 

The Hebrew children said, "Be it known unto fh?5 
king that we will serve no image. The Lord our God 
is able to deliver us, but if not, be it known unto you, 
we will not serve your god, even if we die." Brothers 
and sisters, God will make you succeed in his way, but 
I want to say, j r ou must get that idea of success out of 
your minds, die to it, and when you consent to be a 
failure for Jesus then the Lord can do something with 
you. And so Gaddi was a man that went in for suc- 
cess, and found •eternal failure. 

The next man's name was "Ammiel." The name 
signifies "The people of God." The key of his character 
was, "Are we not the Lord's people ; are we not the de- 
scendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and have we 
•not been predestinated, and so it does not matter if we 
do not go up into the land of Canaan." He was depend- 
ing on his election, on God's decrees. We cannot de- 
pend upon our church history, but only upon our fideli- 
ty to the blessed God. If your soul is not pure I beg of 
you do not lean on your past religion, or on church 



46 Bible Truth Library. 

membership. Ammiel depended on that and found a 
grave in the burning sands, and millions who put their 
trust in decrees will die in a like manner. 

The next man's name was "Sethur." It signifies 
"secrecy," "mystery." The key to his life is this: 
"Now this going up into Canaan is too deep and too pro- 
found for us, and it won't do for us to meddle with any 
of these deep and profound mysteries." How many 
there are who think sanctification is so deep and mys- 
terious, and they say you ought never to mention sanc- 
tification where young Christians are, that you thereby 
discourage them. They say you should only mention 
sanctification in a whisper, whereas the going up into 
Canaan and the blessed fulness of salvation is a gospel 
so plain that boys and girls can take hold of it. There 
is no great mystery in believing Jesus, and children can 
be converted and boys and girls can be fully sanctified. 
Never hold back because you think a thing is a mystery 
and profound. The greatest profundity in the world is 
the unbelief of the human heart. Sethur was a secret 
society man, who thought Canaan must be taken by 
"grips" and degrees. 

The next man's name is "Nahbi," which signifies 
"to hide," to cover up, to shun, to run away, to conceal 
one's self. The secret of that man's heart was, he was 
a coward. He would get behind the tree when the bul- 
lets flew, and he would run when he was not being 
looked at. He did not want to bear any responsibil- 
ity. He was afraid to take front rank, he was afraid 
to stand up and be a target for Jesus. He shunned re- 
sponsibility. What a large family of relatives that man 



The Heavenly Life. 47 

has ! People say, Please get somebody else, I am not 
adapted to it ; people who excuse themselves are trying to 
conceal and to hide. They have the spirit of coward- 
ice. That man could not go into Canaan. It takes a 
brave heart to come out for the fulness of salvation. It 
takes a brave heart to come out for Jesus. Brothers 
and sisters, you must be brave, and if you have any tim- 
idity, settle it to die to it. Come to the crucifixion and 
get the blessed God to take all the cowardice out of you. 

The next man's name was "Geuel." He was a high 
churchman. The name Geuel signifies "The majesty of 
God." The key to that man's heart is : everything must 
be done majestically. There must be tone, splendor and 
dignity about everything. Everything was pervaded by 
the word majesty. God is majestic. He wants us to 
give him the majesty, but man's idea of majesty is just 
the opposite of God's. When we put on majestic forms 
and ceremonies we only cloud ourselves. And so in all 
these men you will find the progress of self-love. Begin 
at the top and run down; it is self. The first word is 
self-praise; the second is self -enthronement ; the third 
name is self-revenge; the fourth is self-seeking; 
the fifth name is self-interest; the sixth is self- 
sufficiency; the seventh is self-security; the eighth 
is self-deceit; the ninth is self-preservation, and 
the tenth is self-splendor. You find there is a progress 
of self-love, and all these men when they came back, and 
made their report, they put in their report such ex- 
pressions as : We saw ; we saw the giants. 

Now take the report of the other two men. The 
name "Caleb" signifies a dog. The name Joshua 



48 Bible Truth Library. 

signifies salvation. Put the two together, a dog 
and salvation; the name of Caleb signifies the extreme 
weakness and helplessnes of the human side. Caleb's 
name signifies the man's side, so blind, so helpless, so 
good-for-nothing ; and the name Joshua supplements it, 
signifying God's ability, His grace, that He can cleanse, 
can save ; and you have one name representing the abso- 
lute frailty, weakness, depravity of the human race, and 
the other name signifying the sufficiency of the blessed 
God to cleanse and save. When the man's side opens 
and says Lord, I faint, I faint, I am nothing more than 
a dog; when a man opens his heart without any white- 
wash in it, without any splendor or self at all, and makes 
a complete confession to God, Jehovah opens his heart 
and says to him, I have got salvation ; I have got grace ; I 
can forgive ; I can purge. When a man confesses every- 
thing there is in his heart God will turn around and con- 
fess everything that is in His heart. If you will just 
take the place of a poor little animal, and open your 
heart to God, he will open his heart of salvation to you. 
These two men, when they brought their report, the 
Bible says, "they brought a report as it was in their 
heart." The ten men brought a report as it was in their 
head, and they said, we saw this, and we saw that. But 
the two men brought their report not as it was in their 
head, but "as it was in their heart." If you look at God 
through your head you will be like the ten men; but 
after you see him in your heart you will get down to the 
great things of God. When you come to seek the perfec- 
tion of love don't go head-foremost but go heart-f oremost. 
You do not understand perfection, but God does. Those 



The Heavenly Life. 49 

men lived once. When they lived they had life like we 
have it, but they are dead and gone. The bones of these 
ten men are bleaching today, are somewhere in the great 
Aralbian desert,, and the Bible says they fell in the wil- 
derness ; but the bones of Caleb and Joshua are reposing 
this very minute in the land of promise. We will soon 
be gone ; we have not long to live. Let us believe God, 
and report the precious things of his kingdom, his for* 
giving, his restoring, his cleansing, his healing, his touch 
of flaming love, as we see them in our hearts. Compare 
Numbers 13 :28 with Joshua 14 :7. 






CHAPTER V. 

STAGES IN THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

One of the strongest proofs that the Bible is the in- 
fallible Word of God, is the fact that its delineations 
of the soul, and every variety of character so perfectly 
corresponds with the inward conditions and operations 
of the human heart, both in sin and in holiness. The 
Holy Spirit always works in souls exactly according to 
His own pattern, which He has set forth in Scripture. 
There are several places in the New Testament where we 
have a kind of a portrait of spiritual experiences which 
go to makeup a full Christian character and life. One 
of these passages is found in the first five verses of the 
fifth of Komans. In the first verse we have justification, 
and in the second verse sanctification, and in the third, 
tribulation, and then through the remainder of the text 
the outworking by various steps of a mature life in the 
love of God. The subject of sanctification has been so 
fully and ably written upon by many in recent years, 
that most who read this book may be familiar with that 
matter. But there is a field of experience in the out- 
working and maturing of the life of sanctification that 
has been comparatively neglected by spiritual writers. 
Hence, in this exposition we want to allow sufficient 
space for the first and second verses, and take more time 
for the unfolding those deeper processes of grace which 
are subsequent to the first entrance upon the Canaan or 
heavenly life. 

(50) 



The Heavenly Life. 51 

1. The subject in the first verse of the passage un- 
der consideration is that of justification by faith. In 
order to better understand this subject we must remem- 
ber that the Scriptures teach four kinds of justification. 
The saintly John Fletcher wrote a very able essay upon 
these four kinds of justification over a hundred years 
ago, but his wonderful writings were unfortunately 
brought out in connection with the great theological 
controversies of his times, which have hindered them 
from the circulation they merited. We have space only 
to briefly outline this branch of our subject. Eemember 
that justification covers a larger ground than sanctifica- 
tion, for it must begin previous to sanctification, and 
run on through all the life of faith, and extend out into 
all the actions of life, and it culminates when the be- 
liever is judged at the second coming of Christ, and 
stands forever acquitted by the rewards given by the 
Savior. To justify in a human court is to prove one's 
innocence. But to justify by grace, is to confess the 
guilt and be acquitted through the merit of Jesus, who 
was the sinner's substitute on the cross. The first justi- 
fication is that by which all the infants of the human 
race are fully acquitted of any guilt from the sin of 
Adam. It is true that all infants begotten of a human 
father are born with a fallen, sinful nature, but there is 
not imputed to their account any guilt or any action 
from Adam. This is the kind of justification Paul 
speaks of when he says, "That as by the offense of one, 
judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so 
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all 
men unto justification of life/' Eom. 5 :18. Now you 



52 Bible Truth Library. 

notice that this kind of justification of infants is univer- 
sal, it has at one time passed upon all men. And you 
also observe, that it is without any faith, and without 
any good works, but "the free gift to every child of our 
race," because Jesus is the second Adam, and has re- 
deemed all men from condemnation, because of the sins 
of Adam. Hence, if we now sin, we bring upon us our 
own guilt, which necessitates another kind of justifica- 
tion. 

Now the second justification set forth in Scripture, 
is by faith alone for the penitent sinner, in which good 
works can merit nothing. To be justified by faith, is to 
give up ourselves as utterly lost and undone, and to re- 
ceive Jesus as our substitute, bearing our death-penalty 
on the cross, and then the Father remits our sins purely 
and only on the ground that His Son suffered in our 
stead. When our sins are pardoned, then the Holy 
Spirit can regenerate us; for in the nature of things, 
the new birth could not take place in us till our guilt 
is removed and we are in a right, a lawful relation with 
God. Saint Paul writes more upon justification by faith 
than all the rest of Scripture writers beside. 

The third kind of justification is that of the believer 
after he is saved, and which is by faith and works con- 
joined. This is the kind of justification that Saint 
James writes about. It has puzzled a great many people 
that Saint James, in his epistle, should say, over and 
over again, that we are justified by works ( Jas. 2 :14- 
25). Even the great Martin Luther said that James 
"wrote an epistle of straw" on the subject of justifica- 
tion. Eemember, Luther was just emerging from Eo- 



The Heavenly Life. 53 

manism, which teaches salvation by penance, and the 
great reformer did not understand, in his day, the dif- 
ference between the justification which is by faith in 
Christ alone, and the subsequent justification in the on- 
going daily life of the Christian, which must be proved 
by good works to accompany faith. Saint Paul elabo- 
rates the justification by which we become Christians, 
and Saint James emphasizes the justification accompan- 
ied by good works, by which we prove we are Christians, 
and continue to be such. Let me call your attention to 
a very singular thing upon this subject, in connection 
with Abraham. Saint Paul brings Abraham on the wit- 
ness stand, to prove that "we are justified by faith alone, 
without works" (Eom. 4:1-13), and then Saint James 
brings Abraham on the witness stand to prove "that we 
are justified by works" (James 3:21). How can they 
both be true? It is plain enough if you will just con- 
sider that Paul refers to Abraham's justification at the 
beginning of his spiritual life, before he was circum- 
cised; and James refers to Abraham's justification near- 
ly forty years afterward, in connection with his obedi- 
ence, by which he proved and maintained his justifica- 
tion. So both are true, taken at the stages in Abraham's 
life to which they apply. Now, do you not see how easy 
it is for ignorant people to think the Bible contradicts 
itself, when there is no contradiction ? 

The fourth kind of justification will be at the second 
coming of Jesus, when the saints are judged, and their 
good works will be examined, not for the purpose of sav- 
ing, but for the purpose of rewarding. This is the kind 
which Jesus refers to in speaking of the judgment, "by 



54 Bible Truth Library. 

thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned." When we pass that last great 
justification at the judgment-seat of Christ, and hear 
our Savior-Judge say, "Well done," that will be the last, 
and the everlasting justification of the soul. 

Now, you see the first justification of infants, is 
without any faith and without any works, and relates to 
the souPs exemption from the guilt of Adam/s transgres- 
sion. The second justification — that of the penitent — 
is by faith alone, and relates to our own actions — the 
pardon of our personal offences. The third justification 
is that of the saved believer, and is by faith and works 
combined, and it relates to the obedience of a child of 
God. The fourth justification is by works alone, for 
only works are mentioned in the judgment, and this jus- 
tification has reference to rewards for service. Thus, 
justification is a larger subject than many suppose. 

2. Sanctification. The apostle says that after being 
justified by faith, and having peace with God, there is 
more to follow: "By whom also (that is, in addition to 
pardon) we have access by faith into this grace (that is, 
the sanctifying grace), wherein we stand and rejoice, in 
hope of the glory of God." It is true, the word sanctifi- 
cation is not found in this verse, but that special "grace*" 
is described as standing firm, or being rooted in Christ, 
and in the joy and hope of the glory of God which is to 
be revealed. The special feature of sanctification to be 
noticed in this verse is, that it is "by faith," just the 
same as the penitent's justification is by faith. The 
word "access" indicates a doorway. There is no en- 
trance way into true sanctification except by simple 



The Heavenly Life. 55 

faith in the all-cleansing blood of Jesus. Growth sim- 
ply enlarges and unfolds a life, or a principle, but does 
not purify. The growth of a child does not cure it of 
hereditary disease. In like manner, the growth of a 
Christian, in and of itself, can never purge out the car- 
nal nature. Good works cannot sanctify the heart, for 
in that case salvation would come through human action 
instead of being a divine gift. Thousands of Christians 
have tried in various ways to get rid of the evil in their 
hearts by will-power, by growth, by good works, by suf- 
ferings, by repression, by sacranuents, by gradual pro- 
cesses, but never has one entered into the calm, sweet 
rest of heart purity, except by the access or doorway of 
faith as mentioned by Paul. When all the soul's re- 
sources are exhausted, and it comes to a place of perfect, 
everlasting abandonment to the will of God, and faith 
simply takes the Word Divine as a literal fact, that "our 
sanctification is God's will," and that "the blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," then the Holy 
Spirit, in a moment, brings it to pass. Justification re- 
moves our actual sins, and sanctification purges out our 
native heart sinfulness. Justification takes us out of 
Egypt, and sanctification takes the lingering principles 
of Egypt out of us. In justification we cross the Red 
Sea, but by sanctification we cross the Jordan, into Ca- 
naan. The heavenly life is the Canaan life, and hence, 
you see, we do not enter,in a very true sense/the heavenly 
life, till our hearts are made pure and the Holy Spirit 
brings us into the fruitful region of pure or unmixed 
religious love. 

3. Tribulation, and its outworking in the sanctified 



56 Bible Truth Library. 

life. "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also- 
knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience 
experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not 
ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." No 
flower ever unfolded to the light of the sun more beauti- 
fully than these various words describe the unfolding 
of the successive forms of experience in the sanctified 
life. The saints of the Lord will be astonished to find a 
perfect photograph depicted in the order of these vari- 
ous words, of the lights and shadows, the joys and sor- 
rows, the conflicts and conquests, and all the various 
problems in their hidden lives. Let us take time to ex- 
amine each of these words separately, and see how pre- 
cisely they find an echo in our experiences. 

"Tribulation." The word signifies a flail, or thresh- 
ing instrument, for beating the chaff from the pure, 
ripened grain. Eemember, chaff is not a type of inbred 
sin, for it is something that is essential to grain in its 
milk state, and when growing. In a field of growing 
corn, Scripture compares the heart to the ground, and 
the growing grain to Christian life, and weeds and briars 
to carnal affections ; but the chaff, or husk, that envel- 
opes the grain, represents those things in us which are 
essential in the infant stages of grace, but are found 
useless, and can be threshed away when the believer has 
reached Christian perfection. When the soul is first 
sanctified it lives for a period in a sort of heavenly hon- 
eymoon, which is distinctly set forth in the old Jewish 
law, providing that when a man married a wife, he was 
to be exempt from all public and military duties and 



The Heavenly Life. 57 

hardships for one year, that he might live in undisturbed 
domestic joy. But after that, he must expect to take up 
the toils and trials of warfare, and, as Paul says, "endure 
hardness as a good soldier." That old Levitical law is 
the exact thought of this passage, that after the marvel- 
ous joys and bounding heavenly delights that come with 
the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that in due time the soul 
will be led by one way or another, under the tribulum, 
or flail, that its chaff, which is now no longer needed, 
may be threshed away. After men grow the grain, and 
the baptism of warm sunshine has ripened and hardened 
it, then the husks, the straw, the chaff, is threshed from 
it, that it may be exported to distant markets. In like 
manner, when the believer has been purified and solidi- 
fied, by the warm baptism of the Holy Ghost, there are 
many religious or mental infirmities, which need to be 
threshed out of him, to prepare him for exportation to 
the Eew Jerusalem. Please notice the following things 
as indicating what we may put down as the chaff, which 
many Christians have to get cured of after their sancti- 
fication. They are not of the nature of inbred sin, but 
of human weakness, and ignorance: Human theology. 
There never was a sanctified Christian that did not have 
to cast off some old narrow theology for broader truth. 
Bash judgments. Almost invariably souls, young in 
sanctification, form judgments of people and things too 
quickly. False zeal. Every old saint, on looking back, 
can see how he used to let his pious zeal run ahead of his 
knowledge. Using slang. How many hundreds of good, 
sanctified people have a habit of using slang, and pun- 
ning on words and names that often is like dead flies in 



58 Bible Truth Library. 

the ointment. Vacillation. This is a weakness in the 
will power, and often lingers with good people after 
sanctifieation. Severity of manner. Multitudes of souls 
who are sanctified have a harshness in their words and 
manners, to the great detriment of their usefulness. 
Touchiness. This is that mean weakness that Mr. Wes- 
ley was constantly urging professors of holiness to avoid. 
Imprudence. Many sanctified people lack sense and dis- 
cretion, and have to learn many things by hard thumps. 
Business negligence. Some of the greatest lights in 
promoting scriptural holiness are very poor financial 
managers, and get in debt, or neglect business details, 
and have to be threshed into business sense. Fun. How 
many have crippled their experiences by giving way to 
fun, wit, sarcasm, until it was whipped out of them. 
Precipitation, or going too fast, or indolence, going too 
slow, have hindered many. These and many other things 
of a similar nature, are to be corrected by trials and re- 
bukings, and humiliations, and hardships. The heart is 
washed from sin by the blood of Jesus, but the head is 
chastised from its narrowness and foolishness by a rod. 
You must not confound the washing of the heart with 
the teaching of the head. You cannot find a word in 
all Scripture about God washing the head. The Scrip- 
tures make no mistake, and they locate sanctifieation for 
the heart, and tribulation for the head. Divine provi- 
dence can always find an appropriate thing to serve as a 
flail. He may use loss of property, or loss of friends, or 
health, or sore temptations, or persecution, or ostracism, 
or sore disappointment, or the misunderstanding of good 
people, or the bitter hatred of bad people, or things in 



The Heavenly Life. 59 

the outer life, or things in the inner life, to become a 
flail, that beats away, either steadily or by spells, day 
after day, or week after week, or month after month, 
and sometimes for years, till all the graces are inured 
to trial. Sooner or later, all the principles that were 
involved in our entire consecration, have to be brought 
out and tested in some furnace, that they may be proved 
for the everlasting kingdom. 

Separating the elements of chaff is not a cleansing, 
but a threshing, and, mark you, men never thresh grain 
while it is in the green, milk state, but only when the 
grain is grown and pure, and able to bear it. 

"Tribulation worketh patience." This word "pa- 
tience" should be, more properly, "endurance." Tribu- 
lation, or threshing, produces in the soul a hardihood, a 
toughness of fibre, so that it can endure all sorts of 
things with ease and calmness and sweetness of spirit. 
When the threshing first begins, the soul, though pure, 
is tender, and not accustomed to hard usage ; but tribu- 
lation produces a heroic toughness. There is a youthful- 
ness, a tender childhood, in the sanctified experience, 
just as truly as in the early days of our conversion. Oc- 
casionally, we come across some well-meaning preacher, 
or evangelist, who lacks knowledge in expounding divine 
things, and such persons sometimes unwisely present the 
first entrance into sanctification as being so perfect as to 
make it appear that every one who is pure in heart will 
be strong enough never to get wounded, or to get their 
feelings hurt, or keenly feel the thrusts of the adversary. 
This, says Mr. Wesley, is too strong. It is unscriptural. 
The passage we are considering teaches us that it is not 



60 Bible Truth Library. 

the cleansing of the heart that makes the soul tough, 
but that it is a result of tribulation. Many a purified 
Christian has keenly felt the mean, unkind thrusts of 
dear relatives, of carnal preachers, and of those from 
whom they had a right to expect better treatment, and 
while they were free from resentment or bitterness, they 
have bled from many a stab, and in their secret cham- 
bers have poured out their feelings of loneliness, and 
perplexity, and distress, to the blessed Jesus, who is 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in 
all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4: 
15, 16). There are two kinds of sensitiveness: One is 
that mean trait of "touchiness," which takes offense at 
every slight or rebuke, and cannot bear to be corrected; 
but there is another kind which is simply a sense of in- 
justice and unkindness, which is normal in any pure 
nature. Now tribulation will so toughen the tender, 
sensitive part of the soul as to make it endure injuries, 
unkindness, and ill-usage of all sorts,so that it is not dis- 
turbed, but kept in a holy indifference as to how it is 
treated. If you take a stick and begin to beat the palm 
of your hand, in a few moments your hand will feel 
;S0Te; but if you will give it a rest, and then beat it 
some more, with another resting spell, and keep up the 
process at intervals day after day, your hand will get 
hard and horny, so that you would hardly feel the pierc- 
ing of a needle in it. That is exactly the thought ex- 
pressed in this Scripture, that tribulation worketh en- 
durance, or the flail produces toughness. 

Remember, in all this threshing, God does not mean 
to injure your soul, but to separate from you some weak- 



The Heavenly Life. 61 

ness, or error, or indiscretion, or excess, or foolishness, 
or babyishness, which sticks to you like chaff to rice, 
and of which you are perhaps not aware. You are pre- 
cious to your Kedeemer, and He loves you, and the 
chastening rod is a necessity to knock off some tight- 
fitting chaff. But, thank the Lord, the flailing will stop 
when the end has been accomplished. Isaiah refers to 
this when he says, that "the grain is threshed with a 
threshing instrument, and the fitches are beaten out 
with a staff, and bread corn is bruised, because he will 
not ever be threshing it." Isa. 28 :27, 28. At last the 
saint gets into a place where nothing hurts him, and he 
can "endure all things" with a sweet and patient spirit, 
and, in fact, pay no attention to a thousand injuries that 
used to greatly distress him. 

"Patience worketh experience" That is, toughness 
produces a deep inward knowledge of ourselves and the 
things of God. The Greek word rendered "experience" 
signifies "to prove," to demonstrate, to put things to a 
test. Our English word experience is made up of three 
Latin words — ex (out from), per (yourself, your per- 
sonality), and science (knowledge, or wisdom) ; that is, 
"experience" means knowledge, certainty, assurance, 
that you have acquired out of the depths of your own 
heart. Thus the spirit of endurance causes each Chris- 
tian soul to search itself, the Bible and God's provi- 
dence, and in secret prayer, in solitary meditations, to 
get acquainted with God, to prove His promises, to learn 
His ways, and to solve the great problems of life, all 
alone in the school of trial, till it comes forth as from a 
divine university, educated more thoroughly in immor- 



62 Bible Truth Library. 

tal knowledge than all the schools of earth could have 
taught it. The word "experience" not only means 
knowledge, but compound knowledge, knowledge that 
has been doubled by first going down into the heart, and 
then being wrought out in little details under manifold 
testings. Saint John refers to this double, or compound 
knowledge, when he says, "We do know that we know 
him." 1 John 2 :3. 

"Experience worheth hope/' This word "hope" re- 
fers to a bright outlook and anticipation of good things 
to come at the coming of the Lord. In certain locali- 
ties, especially in Scotland and New England, many 
people use the word "hope" in an improper sense to 
mean the new birth. They will speak of "getting a 
hope" when they refer to getting religion, or being par- 
doned. Such is not the meaning of the word hope in 
the New Testament. In Scripture the word "hope" re- 
fers to something in the future that we are firmly de- 
pending upon. The apostle distinctly says, "What a 
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" Now, out of 
religious experience — that is, if it be properly accom- 
panied with Bible knowledge, — there will spring forth 
a beautiful and strong expectation of receiving that vast 
inheritance promised to the overcoming believer. Did 
you ever count over the numerous things that are prom- 
ised in Scripture to the overcoming saints? There is 
"victory over death," or if Jesus comes sooner than 
death, the promise of "translation" and "rest in Para- 
dise," and a place in "the first resurrection," and in 
"the marriage supper of the Lamb," and then the "com- 
ing again with Jesus" to "rule the nations" for a thou- 



The Heavenly Life. 63 

sand years, and to "inherit the earth," and to "be kings 
and priests," and to "sit with him in his throne," and 
to have "authority to judge the world," and "to judge 
the angels," and to have "a mansion in the city of pure 
gold," and "to see the face of God," and "to know as we 
are known," and to be everlastingly free from sorrow, 
or pain, or ignorance, or whatever causes tears. Every- 
one of these items is pledged to the overcoming saint 
by multiplied promises in the Word of 'God. This is 
the vast field over which hope hovers. 

"And hope maketh not ashamed." A soul full of di- 
vine hope is buoyant, cheerful, brave, not discouraged 
by things in the past. This is the spiritual biography, 
sketched out by the apostle in these five verses. But the 
secret of the whole process is in the last clause — "Be- 
cause the love of God is shed abroad (or poured into) 
our hearts by the Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit is the 
divine agent that pours into us the love of God. It is 
cfjivine love poured into us that works out the great 
process. Tribulation would bruise us to death, if it was 
not that the love of God, like a lubricating oil, was 
poured into our hearts. And endurance would never 
work experience, if it was not pervaded and possessed 
with the love of God. Thus, at every step of the way, it 
is divine love poured into us by the Holy Spirit, that 
forms the true Christlike character, which will be the 
golden grain gathered into the everlasting kingdom of 
our Lord. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROOFS OF HUMBLE LOVE. 

It is one of the characteristics of the spiritual age 
that God does not always reveal to a devoted soul the 
progress it is making, for the very reason that if the 
soul knew of all its advanced steps it would often hinder 
the progress itself. So the Holy Spirit lovingly conceals 
his own work oftentimes in order that by a sense of pov- 
erty the soul may be pushed on to a swifter growth. 
Then there are other times when the Holy Spirit has got 
the believer upon some elevated point he will give him 
a view over the spiritual landscape, that he may see what 
God hath wrought and be still encouraged to higher at- 
tainments. But right amid the wear and tear of Chris- 
tian life there are certain proofs which we may test our- 
selves by as to whether we are in a state of perfect cru- 
cifixion and in unbounded divine love. The love of 
Christ in us must not only be severely tested, but ev- 
ery advancing degree of that love will be tested. Among 
these proofs we may mention the following : 

1. To have the love of God in a state of pure faith — 
that is, to be able to discern in our spiritual nature that 
we love God with all our hearts, even apart from all 
pleasant sensations in the emotional nature. There are 
three kinds of emotion — bodily, soulish and spiritual; 
and if apart from all happy, nervous conditions, and 

(64) 



The Heavenly Life. 65 

apart from all exhilarating feelings in the mental or 
soulish nature, we can be conscious in the deep inner 
spirit that we prefer God and love him aibove all things 
in the universe, we may know that we are in a state of 
pure love. 

2. Another proof of humble love is to accept of out- 
ward poverty as a gift from God, and, in great meekness 
of spirit, not only be willing to be poor, but even to be 
the object of charity, and, if come to that, be a charity 
patient in a hospital — to take the place of Lazarus at the 
rich man's gate, and become an object of the charity of 
others, even when they do not especially love us, but to 
be so united to God's will that we see through all second- 
ary agents, and look to God alone, and receive the most 
humiliating circumstances of life as an expression of 
God's will and love, with meek and quiet spirit — this 
is a proof that the heart is perfectly crucified and full 
of lowly love. 

3. To have our most sacred faith denounced and 
treated with contempt; to have our prayers scoffed at, 
our deepest experiences treated with contumely and 
scorn; to have our fellowship with the Holy Ghost ridi- 
culed, not only by sinners but by professed Christians 
and ministers; to have our testimony to the precious 
blood criticized and denounced as a delusion; to have our 
motives impugned and grossly misrepresented even by 
other professing Christians; to have our faith in the 
great old doctrines of the Bible, of heaven and hell, of 
future rewards and punishments, of the three adorable 
persons in the Trinity, of the hope of the coming of Je- 
sus and his reign on the earth, of the virtue of his 



66 Bible Truth Library. 

blood, of healing diseases; to have all these dearest be- 
liefs of the heart set at naught by chief priests and pro- 
fessed friends, and yet to be so thoroughly crucified as 
to be undisturbed and to keep in a still, patient, lov- 
ing disposition, without contention, without agitation — 
this is a proof of humble love. 

4. Another proof of a real humble spirit is to have 
the natural affections cut all to pieces by harsh words, 
unkind treatment, or mangled by scorn and neglect, and 
for the soul to seek no consolation from the creature, 
but to give itself up to God in unlimited abandonment 
and seek only the solace that comes from the blessed 
Jesus. Unless a soul is thoroughly crucified and in a 
state of divine union, it will, under such circumstances, 
when its natural affections are bruised and disappoint- 
ed, turn to some creature for comfort; it will go to old 
friends, or to supposed friends, to seek for help ; it must 
unbosom its woes to somebody, for counsel and sym- 
pathy. And although such a soul may be a Christian, 
yet, if it is not in perfect union with God and in sweet 
intimacy with the Holy Spirit, where it understands how 
to draw all its comforts from God, it will invariably turn 
to some creature. But if it can quietly turn to God 
alone for consolation, that is a proof of its perfect hu- 
mility and love. 

5. There are times when the true believer passes 
through states of mind or experience which resemble a 
great western blizzard, where the wind seems to blow 
from every quarter at the same time, and the snow is so 
blinding that you cannot see your way. In such cases 
there will be the most contradictory vicissitudes. Good 



The Heavenly Life. 67 

things and bad things seem terribly misplaced, as if 
good and evil had changed places and wore each other's 
faces and garments ; where divine providence seems un- 
hinged and where infinite mercy seems to be tantalizing 
the heart. Now, if the soul can shut its outward eyes 
and with the interior vision of faith look right through 
the tangled mass of such vicissitudes,and discern God in 
it all, and anchor itself to his pure will in a holy defiance 
of the appearance of things, and have just the same con- 
fidence in God and his word then as in fair weather, 
that is a proof of a state of humble love. 

6. To work for God through months or years and be 
the instrument of accomplishing what seems to be a 
'good work and then to have it all torn into rags and 
seemingly destroyed from the earth without losing heart, 
without getting religiously vexed, without ever charging 
God unkindly, but to lean back on him and keep gentle 
and full of peace, is a proof of self-renunciation and 
pure love. It is a singular trait of good people, even 
very religious people, even those professing full sanc- 
tification, to become wonderfully attached to their own 
work, and when they have accomplished something for 
God they unwittingly love their work and make a saintly 
idol of it. 'Then when God allows the precious thing to 
be torn to pieces they feel smitten to the dust, because 
they loved their holiness work instead of fixing all their 
love on the dear Lord alone. This is why divine Prov- 
idence allows so much of Christian work to go to wreck, 
for he is determined that not even the best of things 
shall take his place in our love. Now, if you can work 
for God, and yet keep your heart entirely weaned from 



68 



Bible Truth Library. 



your work, so that you can see it blow to pieces with a 
sweet happy spirit in God alone, that is a proof that you 
are dead even to your righteous self, and that Christ in- 
deed lives in you and that you have his meek and lowly 
spirit. 

7. To sow and have others reap is a proof of humble 
love, especially if you can see them reap with the same 
thankfulness as if you did your own reaping. It will put 
a Christian's love to a real test to cordially embrace this 
truth. To toil through summer's heat or winter's cold, 
to give line upon line and precept upon precept without 
seeming to produce adequate results ; to exhaust our re- 
sources in boring a well for oil and get within one foot 
of the vein when the last penny is gone and then to have 
some one else take the well and bore only a few inches 
and strike a fortune of oil, and even rejoice in the 
other's good fortune — this is unselfishness. Yet all we 
need to give us this grace is that immensity of faith to 
see that God owns everything; and if we toil for him 
without seeing the fruit, and some one else reaps the 
harvest — if we really love God with pure, unbounded 
love we will rejoice that God is getting the harvest from 
some other hands just as much as if he got it from our 
hands. 

8. Another proof of a lowly, loving heart is to re- 
ceive all sorts of injuries and unkind treatment without 
making any reply, and even making it the occasion for 
the exercise of the warmest love and prayer for those 
who injure us. I think it is Saint Clemachas who tells 
us that he knew of three instances where very good men 
received very mean treatment and suffered much injury 



The Heavenly Life. 6;> 

from their fellows, and he noted the different degrees of 
grace manifested by each. In the first case the good man 
bore meekly all the unkindnesses without any reply, but 
quietly hid himself in God. In the second the humble 
man rejoiced that he had an opportunity of suffering 
for Jesus and with Jesus, so that he went beyond the 
first case, not only meekly bearing it, but ever rejoicing 
for the privilege of suffering. In the third case the saint 
felt such a deep sorrow and sympathy for those who had 
injured him that he wept for them. He not only had 
meekness to bear it, as in the first instance, and gladness 
at the privilege of suffering, as in the second, but his 
love was so divine and fiery and unselfish that he prayed 
with loving tears for those who injured him. Now, all 
of these three men manifested perfect love, but they 
show the different stages which there may be in the pure 
love of Jesus. 

9. To be in a storm of distress and sorely tempted 
and tried in manifold ways and yet not to advertise it, 
but tell it all out to God in secret prayer, and keep a 
calm, peaceful spirit, and to walk calmly before our fel- 
lows, and give them the sunshine even when the heart is 
bleeding and the mind is perplexed with manifold trials 
— this is proof of a truly humble, loving heart. 

10. To work for God with all our strength, without 
waiting for happy feelings, even though our spirit may 
feel dry and sorrowful, but to have a lofty, pure faith 
that persistently keeps us going without joyful sensa- 
tions, this is pleasing to God. And a still higher form of 
this grace is to see others being saved or getting blessed 
through our ministry, while we work in a dry or sorrow- 



70 Bible Truth Library. 

ful state, and they are made happy through our sorrow, 
and well watered through our dryness, and lifted up 
through our humiliation, and made rich through our 
poverty, as if they were drawing the very juices of our 
soul away from us, and yet all the while to have a sweet, 
God-like contentment that we can spend and be spent 
for others, this is proof of a genuine apostolic condition 
of mind. 

11. To have God strip us of all sensible comfort, 
and seem to shower his extraordinary favors upon oth- 
ers, and leave us, as it were, in desolation, and at the 
same time to load us down with many arduous labors 
and great responsibilities, while divesting us of what we 
regard as adequate joys, and yet, through it all, to stead- 
ily behold him with the eye of pure faith, and to love 
him with a deep, pining, quivering love beyond the ex- 
pression of all words, this is a mark of genuine self-ab- 
negation and holy love. 

12. Perhaps the highest proof of humble love is to 
be able to rejoice when God triumphs at our cost. When 
we love God so much that we have a real gladness in see- 
ing his will and honor and truth manifested, even 
though it be at the expense of our loss or our deep hu- 
miliation, and even our temporary degradation, this is 
pure love, and this is the love we must have to please 
God, for we must have such a deep, all-consuming pref- 
erence for God that we will take sides against our- 
selves, despise our own interests, and be willing to tear 
ourselves down, and rejoice at any defeat which comes 
to our self -life, and, as it were, utterly desert ourselves 
and go over and join the victorious legions of God's at- 



The Heavenly Life. 71 

tributes and make one cause with God in fighting 
against ourselves. This kind of love has a secret laugh- 
ter every time the will of God succeeds, and especially 
when it succeeds against our blindness and foolishness, 
for we discern that the more we are conquered the deep- 
er is our union with GocL 



©HAPTEK VII. 

THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 

Sorrow is the normal state of a world that is fallen, 
and yet under conditions of redemption. Sorrow on earth 
is the root out of which can be made to grow and blos- 
som the sweetest joys of heaven. Sorrow in man is his 
natural capability for the joys of the supernatural. Sor- 
row is a species of suffering with hope in it. Suffering 
with no hope in it is despair, and that is the normal 
condition in hell. On the other hand, joy, pure, bound- 
less joy, without a trace of sorrow, is the normal state 
in heaven. In the true sense of the word, sorrow is pre- 
eminently a thing belonging to this world, because it oc- 
cupies a middle ground between the hopeless anguish 
and hatred in hell and the bliss of heaven. Hell is a 
starless night, and heaven an endless, cloudless noon; 
but sorrow is a night into which is sifted the silvery 
light of moon and stars. Sorrow is the pathetic poetry 
of a fallen world in which hope still lingers. The heav- 
enly life on earth is tinctured all through with many 
kinds of sorrow. When Scripture says that "sorrow is 
better than mirth," it is with special reference to life in 
this world, and not to the life in heaven. There is noth- 
ing on earth that is not in some way related to sorrow, 
or hedged in by it, or that does not partake of its color 

(72) 



The Heavenly Life. 73 

and tone. We axe redeemed by sorrow. Our Savior, in 
pouring out His precious blood for our everlasting sal- 
vation, said, "I am exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death." Eepentance is made up of many kinds of sor- 
row. The consecration of the believer is steeped in holy 
sorrow. Almost all prayer is saturated with various 
kinds of sorrow. The power of music depends on the 
sorrow there is in it. The poetry of the great masters, 
that holds our intellects spell-bound, derives its mighty 
magic from the sad strains of sorrow that run all 
through it. It is the sorrow element in everything that 
seizes and holds the hearts of mankind beyond any other 
influence. It is sorrow that immortalizes battlefields, 
and monuments, and tombs, and great heroes, and mar- 
tyrs. It is the sorrow piled up in the Wesminster Ab- 
bey that draws thousands annually to walk through its 
halls with silent, uncovered heads. It is the sorrow in 
the Bible that makes it the most natural as well as the 
most divine book on earth; and kings, philosophers, 
young men and maidens, beggars and lonely savages in 
the forest, are more deeply touched with the pathetic 
lives of the dear old weeping patriarchs than with the 
shallow, heartless noise of mere fleshly events. Sorrow 
is the universal language of earth, and more easily un- 
derstood by human hearts than any other one thing. It 
is the background of all our brightest joys. The Holy 
Ghost does not prohibit this element of our nature, but 
bids us "to sorrow not as those who have no hope." 
Though sorrow may have an Ethiopian complexion, yet, 
like the eunuch under Queen Candace, it is a thing of 
great authority, and has charge of the golden treasures 



74 Bible Truth Library. 

of knowledge and wisdom and everlasting life (Acts 
8:27). When sorrow comes under the power of divine 
grace, it works out a manifold ministry in our lives. 

1. It is the ministry of sorrow to break down hard 
natures, and melt stubborn wills. There are men who 
have plenty of mind, and capacity to see truth, to sanc- 
tion righteousness, but whose heart-nature seems made 
of flint. They lack feeling, warmth, tenderness. They 
look upon religion as a cold morality, or a set of busi- 
ness-like duties, or as a financial and political transac- 
tion with God. They look upon religious emotion as 
weak and womanish, and if they are church members, 
and make any pretense to religion, they are more like 
baptized mules than little children with their Heavenly 
Father. God takes His time, and watches His opportu- 
nity, and slowly undermines these tough natures, till 
some day an uneasy feeling comes up from the fountain 
of their being and creeps all through them. Calamity 
takes hold upon them. God allows most bitter disap- 
pointment to crush some darling hope, or plan. Clouds 
gather; misunderstandings, separations, sharp and sud- 
den turns in the intellectual or financial or social life 
transpire; or health breaks down, or bereavement turns 
life into a walking cemetery. Then sorrow gets in its 
beautiful work, and fairly laughs behind its mask of 
tears at the work it will do. As in the late afternoon, 
the shadows of the great, rugged mountains stretch 
themselves across the low valley, as if the proud moun- 
tain peaks had knelt down to pray on the dewy meadow 
in the evening hour, while the stars of evening begin to 
light their lamps, as/ if to make a sanctuary of the spot ; 



The Heavenly Life. 75 

so it often happens that sorrow is an afternoon gospel 
on many a stubborn soul, and gets many a proud heart 
to bow down in the valley of tears. 

2. Sorrow weans us more effectually than anything 
else from many things that prevent our perfect attach- 
ment to God and heaven. We are not only all of us chi] 
dren, but we are always children, and always taking on 
new kinds of childhood. When we drop one form of 
childhood, we simply take on another kind, or another 
degree of childhood, on a different scale of life. Chil- 
dren cry for toys, and men have shed tears for failing to 
get the White House, and 'Generals have wept aloud on 
battle fields for not being allowed certain positions of 
honor, and great doctors of divinity have cried like 
whipped babies when they failed to get some ecclesi- 
astical toy. No nurse on earth can wean the soul from 
its old loves, its ambitions, its own good works, its man- 
ifold entanglements, like dear, old, dusky sorrow. As 
mothers pour sweet balm over the chafed limbs of their 
little children, so sorrow puts a quietness into restless 
characters, stills the noise, soothes the pain, and works 
such a revolution that the soul is perfectly content to 
lose everything and relinquish, let go, give up, and turn 
away from its dearest idols, its fondest dreams, its 
strongest ambitions, with a tranquil indifference that 
is in itself really sweeter than if all its old desir.es had 
been gratified. Sorrow over their failures has brought 
more peace than they would have had if successful. 
Sorrow is the great power of disenchantment. It takes 
the veneering from what we thought was solid mahog- 
any. It pulls off the cheap paper that we thought was 



76 Bible Truth Library. 

some great master's frescoe. It unties strong cords 
that seemed to defy every other power. 

3. Sorrow widens the soul. Nobody ever suspects 
the little, mean narrowness in his heart till G-od's flint 
hammers have broken him all to pieces, and scattered 
the fragments over the great fields of time and provi- 
dence. Human biography is filled with instances which 
show that the men and the women of great, world-wide 
hearts have been those who were the children of deen 

JL 

sorrow. Proud royalists dug up the bones of Cromwell 
and burned them, and scattered the ashes upon the 
winds of heaven. They acted in blind hate, but G-od 
saw that the grave was too small to contain such bones, 
and from that on, the spirit of civil liberty has been 
spreading, as if all mankind had sucked into their lungs 
a portion of the ashes of Cromwell's bones, which were 
tossed to the universal winds. This is the ministry of 
sorrow. It lifts the soul out of geographical lines and 
sectarian walls, and contemptible caste, and bitter ra- 
cial prejudices, or little, narrow religious cliques, and 
makes it a citizen of heaven, a universal lover and friend 
of all mankind, and a princely heir of the ages to come. 
There is among some narrow Christians a water bap- 
tism which pens one up to what is called "close com- 
munion." The soul that God chooses to be baptized into 
sorrow is made a thousand worlds too large for such 
earthly littleness. Joseph had more sorrow than all the 
sons of Jacob, and it led him out into a ministry of 
bread for all nations. For this reason, the Holy Spirit 
said of Joseph, "He was a fruitful bough by a well, 
whose branches ran over the wall" (Gen. 49:22). It 



The Heavenly Life. 77 

was through sorrow his heart grew big enough to run 
over the Jewish wall, and feed the Gentiles with bread; 
and now Gentile Christians need a baptism that will 
lead them over the church walls to love and feed the 
scattered children of Israel. Sorrow is the Mary that 
breaks the alabastar boxes of our hearts and lives, in 
order that the costly perfume may fill the entire house, 
instead of being pent up. God never uses anybody to a 
large degree, until after He breaks them all to pieces* 
4. Sorrow reveals unknown depths in the soul, and 
unknown capabilities of experience and service. Gay, 
trifling people are always shallow, and never suspect 
the little meannesses in their nature. Sorrow is God's 
plowshare that turns up and subsoils the depths of the 
soul, that it may yield richer harvests. If we had never 
fallen, or were in a glorified state, then the strong tor- 
rents of divine joy would be the normal force to open 
up all our soul's capacities ; but being in a fallen world, 
sorrow, with despair taken out of it, is the chosen power 
to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Hence it is sorrow that 
makes us think deeply, long and soberly. Sorrow makes 
us go slower and more considerately, and introspect our 
motives and dispositions. It is sorrow that opens up 
within us the capacities of the heavenly life, and it is 
sorrow that makes us willing to launch our capacities 
on a boundless sea of service for God and our fellows. 
We may suppose a class of indolent people living at the 
base of a great mountain range, who have never ven- 
tured to explore the valleys and canyons back in the 
mountains, and some day, when a great thunder-storm 
goes careering through the mountains, it turns the hid- 



78 Bible Truth Library. 

den glens into echoing trumpets, and reveals the inner 
recesses of the valleys, like the convolutions of a mon- 
ster shell, and then the dwellers at the foot of the hills 
are astonished at the labyrinths and unexplored recesses 
of a region so near by, and yet so little known. So it is 
with many souls who indolently live on the outer edge of 
their own natures until great thunder-storms of sorrow 
reveal hidden depths within that were never hitherto 
suspected. 

5. It is through sorrow the soul learns obedience. 
Scripture tells us that even Jesus "learned obedience by 
the things which He suffered." Many have stumbled 
over this Scripture. Jesus had in Him the principle 
of perfect obedience from His birth, and He never once 
disobeyed the Father in thought, word, or act. But 
that perfect spirit of obedience had to be brought out 
and unfolded in a thousand various applications and 
directions, and under all sorts of human limitations and 
vicissitudes among those who constituted the world's 
sinful society. Now, in the carrying out of His perfect 
obedience there were circumstances painful and sor- 
rowful, and through suffering He learned the import- 
ance, the true value, and the best way of obedience. 
In a similar way, the true child of God finds out 
through sorrow the very deepest and most loving obedi- 
ence. It is sorrow that brings the soul into the Calvary- 
life of Jesus, and introduces it into the priestly life of 
Christ, that of compassion and sympathy and prayer 
for others. As the mordant fixes the colors in a dye, so 
sorrow gives fixedness, perseverance, to the spirit of 
obedience. 



The Heavenly Life. 79 

6. But sorrow will pass away. It ministers now in 
the heavenly life, but its ministry will pass away when 
the curse is lifted from the earth, and the age of glory 
succeeds to the age of grace. It is in the day when the 
saints of God shall be gathered at Mount Zion, "with 
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, that all sor- 
row and sighing shall flee away." It is when the Lamb 
is to gather His redeemed ones in the New Jerusalem, 
and 'lead them by fountains of living waters' that God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Sorrow is 
the pathetic moonlight that in the present dispensation 
ministers to grace, and brings forth some delicate flow- 
ers, that are not strong enough at first to bear the hot 
sunlight of supernal joy. 






CHAPTEK Vni. 

THE HEAVENLY ESTHER. 

Although the book of Esther does not contain the 
name of God, yet it is filled with his living presence and 
amazing providence. The characters mentioned in the 
book are not only historical, but prophetic as well; and 
throw their startling shadows across the face of the cen- 
turies. Let us select from this hook the leading char- 
acters, and in the light of the New Testament, see if we 
can trace out their prophetic import. Eemember, that 
Ahasuerus was the monarch of the world, and the 
events here recorded foreshadow things concerning the 
true and Eightful Euler of this world, who is the Jeho- 
vah Jesus. 

1. The great King, at the close of a festivity, want- 
ed his queen, Vashti, to break the rigid customs of an 
Eastern harem, and come forth in public society, that 
the Princes might see her beauty, and perhaps thereby 
be more strongly attached to the dynasty. There is a 
shadow in this, that Jehovah, who at first arranged to 
keep his earthly queen, the Jewish people, in seclusion 
from all other nations as a great national and secret 
treasure, wanted them at last to accept of the great gos- 
pel feast provided by Christ, and the gift of the Spirit, 
and at that feast God planned that this Jewish people 
should now break forth beyond their exclusiveness, and 
be the Lord's gospel missionaries among all the nations. 

(80) 



The Heavenly Life. 81 

2. Vashti clung to her harem prejudices, and ut- 
terly refused to break the iron law of caste in which she 
had been trained. So she proudly disobeyed her hus- 
band's command and kept to her seclusion. She pre- 
ferred to break the highest authority in the kingdom, 
rather than break down the middle wall of caste and 
education between herself and the people of the king- 
dom. How truly this fits in with the iron pride of the 
Jewish people, in preferring to break with Jehovah, and 
spurn his commands, in preference to giving up their 
carnal national pride, or breaking over their Hebrew 
caste, to be a blessing to the hated Gentiles. Paul 
speaks of the wall of partition that in his day existed be- 
tween the proud Jew and the Gentile. God wanted the 
Jewish race to feast on gospel wine, and under those 
festive joys, to break over their caste, and be evangelists 
to the Gentiles, and show forth to the poor heathens 
those queenly beauties of grace and truth which had for 
centuries been thickly veiled in the pale of Israel. But 
the Jews as a people clung to their vail and pride, and 
exclusiveness, and kept on, like Vashti, despising the 
common people. 

3. For this offense Vashti was put away from be- 
ing queen, and degraded in the eyes of those who had 
almost worshipped her. This is exactly what happened 
to the Jewish people, for by rejecting the gospel, with 
its world-wide evangelism, Israel ceased to be God's 
earthly queen, and in the language of their own law, 
God gave them a bill of divorcement, which will con- 
tinue until the "times of the 'Gentiles are fulfilled." 
And, like Vashti, that queenly nation turning away 



82 Bible Truth Library. 

from the gospel, went down under disgrace, scattered 
and peeled, unto this day. 

4. Then a call went forth to hunt out among the 
nations for another queen for the great monarch. How 
clearly we can all see that this portends the going forth 
among the nations to gather out the church of the first- 
born, a holy and elect people, "to be the LamVs wife," 
the queen consort of his coming heavenly kingdom. Do 
not fail to note that a great number of beautiful maid- 
ens were gathered out from the nations, but only one of 
them could be the queen. This is the true teaching of 
Scripture, that not all the saved ones become the bride 
of the Lamb, but from among those who are called out 
from the world, there is a second selection of those who 
are willing to enter into the baptism of death with 
Christ, who are to form the Lamb's wife. David speaks 
of the queen by the King's side, and beside her a great 
company of virgins who are her companions (Psalm 
45 :9-14.) The passage, "many called and few chosen," 
has the meaning of many being saved, while but a few 
get into the Bridehood company. 

5. The young women gathered out for the King 
were put in charge of the great Chamberlain, to be fed 
and trained, that in everything they might be rendered 
noble, attractive, and suitable to adorn the Empire. Of 
all the maidens Esther won the admiration of Hegai, 
the Chamberlain, who gave her special care. In like 
manner all the followers of Christ that are gathered 
out from the world, are put in the custody of the Holy 
Spirit, that He may purify, and anoint, and feed, and 
train them, to be presented to the King. Those believers 



The Heavenly Life. 83 

who have in them the deep disposition of entire aban- 
donment to God are, like Esther, the most attractive to 
the Holy Spirit, and they are the ones the most docile 
and obedient to the guidance of the Spirit, and upon 
whom the Divine Comforter bestows the greatest dis- 
cipline and care. Now, just bend your eyes down a little 
closer and notice a peculiar trait that distinguished Es- 
ther from the other maidens. We are told that "when 
every maid's turn came to visit the King, they were al- 
lowed to have every desire, as to what they wanted given 
to them/' and doubtless they plied their wits as to what 
gifts they would ask. "But when Esther's turn came, 
she had no desire, and required nothing but what Hegai, 
the Chamberlain, appointed for her." What a revelation 
this is of perfect guileless simplicity and purity of soul. 
Those who wanted gifts had mixed motives, and pride, 
and selfishness, which is the state of those believers who 
still have the love of display, or honor, or place, and are 
attached to their gifts and graces. But Esther is a model 
of those servants of Christ, who want nothing except 
what the Holy Spirit appoints, and whose hearts are 
purged from selfishness, or vanity, or the love of gifts, 
and who are clad in perfect humility, and in whose souls 
there is no guile. These are the ones that are fitted for 
the queenly rank in the great kingdom of God. 

6. It was at the end of a specified term of probation 
that Esther was publicly chosen and accepted by the 
Monarch to be his queen, and a proclamation was made 
throughout the kingdom. In like manner, at the close 
of this dispensation, which from the day of Pentecost is 
the church age, at the coming of Jesus to gather his 



84 Bible Truth Library. 

saints, all the saved ones will be presented by the Holy 
Spirit to King Jesus, and from among all the millions 
who are gathered unto him, there will be a special com- 
pany, whose devotion and spiritual beauty, like that of 
Esther, will outshine all others, and who will be accepted 
as the Bride of the Lamb, and clothed with extraordin- 
ary rank and authority in the coming age. 

7. Soon after the enthronement of young Esther, 
there began to appear an awful enemy in the person 
of Haman in the kingdom. 'This Haman is called the 
Agagite, and was doubtless a descendant of that wicked 
Agag that Saul spared but whom Samuel slew, and 
through all these hundreds of years the family of Agag 
had sought revenge upon the Jews. So Haman laid a 
dark plot to have all the Jews slain. He is a fitting type 
of the beastly Antichrist that is to personally arise 
among the nations after the Bridehood saints have been 
caught up from the earth. The apostle speaks of Anti- 
christ "already at work in mystery," but clearly indi- 
cates that the presence of the Holy Ghost in believers 
hinders the Anti-christ coming in person, but when that 
which hinders is taken away, the saints caught up to the 
Lord, then that wicked one, the personal Antichrist, will 
be revealed. (See 2 Thess, 2:3-10.) Thus, as the wick- 
ed Haman is revealed after the exaltation of Queen Es- 
ther, so the Antichrist will appear after the exaltation 
of the Bridehood saints to be with the Lord in the air. 

8. When Haman's murderous plot was revealed, 
Mordecai, acting for his people, rent his clothes, and put 
on sack-cloth, ,and went out into the city, crying with a 
loud and bitter cry! Please note the relationship be- 



The Heavenly Life. 85 

tween the crying Mordecai down in the streets, and the 
young queen up yonder in the palace. When the saints 
k are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, a vast mul- 
titude who believe in God, both Jews and Gentiles, will 
be left behind on the earth. Under the awful reign of 
the beastly Antichrist, the nations will mourn, and es- 
pecially those who believe in God, but who were not pre- 
pared to meet Christ, will mourn in dust and ashes, and 
cry like dear old Mordecai, with a loud and bitter cry. 
The Scriptures speak of the tribulation of those days, as 
surpassing anything of the past, even that of the flood. 
It is called "the time of Jacob's trouble," for as Haman 
tried to kill the Jews, so the Antichrist will make an 
effort to destroy them all. (Jer. 30 :6, 7.) That will be 
the time of the wailing of the five foolish virgins who 
had no oil, that is, foolish Christians who will not have 
the Holy Spirit. 

9. Queen Esther, breaking through all rules of eti- 
quette, took her life in her hand to plead for her people, 
and for the overthrow of Haman. It requires just such 
a spirit of martyrdom in the hearts of saints to qualify 
them for a place in Christ's Bridehood. Let us not 
think that the life of prayer stops with the believer 
when he dies, or is caught up to the Lord, for Scripture 
denies it. Jesus has passed beyond death, but his great 
life of prayer goes on. John positively affirms that he 
saw into heaven, and beheld the souls of martyrs under 
the altar, and heard them pray, and he heard it dis- 
tinctly announced that the answer to their heavenly 
prayers depended upon the unfinished work among 
their brethren down upon the earth. God's vast family 



86 Bible Truth Library. 

is one, though part be in heaven and part on earth. In 
the prayers of Queen Esther we get a glimpse into those 
mighty pleadings of the saints in heaven, and near the 
throne, for the other portion of God's people, who, like 
poor Mordecai, are out wailing in the streets. 

10. Next comes the most marvelous deliverance of 
Mordecai and his people, and the swift and awful doom 
that overtook Haman. This is all prophetic of the ter- 
rific downfall of the Antichrist, who shall be cast alive 
into the lake of fire. (Compare 2 Thess. 2 :8 with Eev. 
19:20.) Then the oppressed ones went free with such 
gladness that the other nations were alarmed and joined 
in friendly terms with the people of Mordecai, which 
is a type that when Antichrist is overthrown, the Jew- 
ish people will be restored and grafted again upon the 
sweet olive tree, as Jesus and Paul teach us, and exalted, 
like the oppressed Mordecai, to the leadership of all the 
nations, while the glorified saints, and especially those 
who compose the wife of the Lamb, like the lovely Es- 
ther, will shine in dazzling splendor of glory and au- 
thority in the palaces of the New Jerusalem. It is all a 
true story of matchless, divine love; and of the ministry 
of deepest sorrow, and crucifixion of self, and the out- 
come of joy and glory in the ages that are to come. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY. 

There is an intimate connection between the experi- 
ences of the spiritual life and the clearness and cor- 
rectness with which scriptural truth is held in the 
mind. A crooked theology will inevitably produce 
either fictitious religious experiences, or mystify and 
cripple a serious one. The subject of the redemption 
of the body is a problem around which more religious 
eperiences have gone to wreck than perhaps any other 
thing. In order to have a scriptural understanding of 
the redemption of the body, we need to consider the en- 
tire scope of redemption as it applies to the three king- 
doms of nature, grace and glory. God's blessed do- 
minion is one extending over the whole universe, but 
for the sake of convenience, and to facilitate our grasp 
of truth, spiritual writers have divided creation into 
three kingdoms — nature, grace and glory. So let us no- 
tice the redemption accomplished by Jesus as applied 
to these three kingdoms. The word redemption means 
to buy back any person or thing which has been cap- 
tured or forfeited, and inasmuch as the world was cap- 
tured by Satan, and man forfeited eternal life by sin, 
Jesus has redeemed or bought back man from sin and 
the world from Satan's authority. The purchase treas- 
ure has been in the life and death of Jesus, but the 

(87) 



88 Bible Truth Library. 

effects of the* purchase will be consummated in its ulti- 
mate form at the final judgment. 

But redemption is being wrought out in its results, 
first in nature, then in grace, and will issue in that of 
glorification. St. Paul covers all these thoughts in the 
8th chapter of Eomans, where he represents all crea- 
tion, and even the work of grace in our hearts, as wait- 
ing for its highest manifestation at the time of the re- 
demption of our bodies. 

I. The redemption purchase of Jesus is related to 
the kingdom of nature. Unless the eternal Son of God 
had agreed, before the world was made, to his incarna- 
tion and death for the human race, then just as soon 
as Adam sinned, his natural life would have been cut 
off, all the animals would have perished, and this fair 
earth would have been shrouded in the blackness of ut- 
ter desolation. But by virtue of the covenant of re- 
demption the natural kingdom was maintained, the ef- 
fects of sin were modified and postponed, the animals 
and natural product of the earth, and the beautiful law 
of nature were allowed to move on, the human race was 
permitted to propagate under a system of merciful pro- 
bation, and thus every rolling sea, every rising and set- 
ting sun, every green landscape, every blessing that 
comes in the natural life of men, animals, or insects, 
was secured and perpetuated because Jesus agreed to 
pay for it all by the sacrifice of himself. Thus men 
have the privilege of living, and thinking, and seeking 
happiness, and have an opportunity of accepting salva- 
tion, and proving whether they will choose righteousness 
or sin, because the privilege has been bought for them 



The Heavenly Life. 81) 

by the Saviour. Every man alive to-day on earth is 
alive and has the use of his faculties because Jesus 
died. Hence it is in this sense that the apostle says. 
"Jesus is the Saviour of all men, but especially of 
them that believe," that is, Jesus gives all men natural 
life, with its thousand-fold advantages, and then he 
becomes in a special way the Saviour from sin of those 
who receive him into their hearts. This redemption in 
its relation to the natural life of mankind is uncon- 
ditional, and life, the universal sunshine, throws its 
golden mantle alike over the just and the unjust. 

II. Eedemption in relation to the kingdom of 
grace. This embraces the whole range of moral and 
spiritual renovation and restoration to God. It in- 
cludes the giving of the law, that it may form a stand- 
ard of right, and also be the minister to search the heart 
and manifest the nature and extent of sin, for the 
great office of God's law is not to save but to show us 
sin and diagnose our disease; but none the less it is 
God's grace that gives us the law to show us our need 
of grace. It also includes the work of repentance, jus- 
tification, sanctification, the fullness of the Spirit, the 
healing of physical diseases for gracious purposes, di- 
vine correction, and the perfect victory of the soul over 
the devil and the fear of death. These are the great 
items embraced in the kingdom of grace which could in- 
clude many subdivisions and many elaborate trains of 
thought. 

Now, one of the greatest mistakes which is made on 
the subject of divine healing is in not putting it as a 
part of the kingdom of grace. There are two extreme 



90 Bible Truth Library. 

views which unbalanced or uninstructed minds hold in 
connection with the healing of bodily diseases by faith. 
One view is in ignoring divine healing for the body en- 
tirely, as having any relation with the gracious redemp- 
tion of Jesus, and so relegating it to the region of fa- 
naticism or chance. The other extreme view is in put- 
ting divine healing as in some way connected with glo- 
rification, and as being a part of the redemption of the 
body from the grave, and thus taking the subject of 
healing out of the kingdom of grace and making it a 
part of the kingdom of glory, and this inevitably leads 
to the rankest fanaticism, and plays sad havoc with the 
Christian life. Many persons take the words of Paul, 
in Komans 8:11, where we are told that the Spirit 
which raised Jesus from the dead will also quicken 
our mortal bodies, and push them into an extreme ap- 
plication. The direct and main application of that verse 
is that the Holy Spirit will cause the dead bodies of 
Christians to be brought to life again and rise from 
the grave just as truly as the Holy Spirit raised the 
dead body of Jesus from the tomb. The word "quick- 
en" means to make alive, and the word mortal means 
dying or subject to death. Now, in a minor sense, 
this quickening applies to divine healing, simply be- 
cause the greater includes the less, and if the Holy 
Spirit, because he has once lived in our bodies, will 
raise them again from the dust of the grave, how much 
more can He now, for gracious purposes, heal the dis- 
eases of the body by expelling sickness with the virtue 
of the life of Jesus. 

But when persons take divine healing as a part of 



The Heavenly Life. 91 

glorification, and draw the conclusion that because dis- 
eases are healed they can get into a state where their 
bodies will never die, and then into the delusion that 
their bodies will be translated even before Christ comes, 
it leads to wild and unscriptural theories and in- 
variably ruins the person's religious experience, and 
they become the victims of demons. Some fancy that 
by long fasting they will lose the principle of death 
out of their bodies and have physical immortality. 
Others think that by living a life of celibacy their 
bodies will become extra holy and so escape death. 
Some think that by eating only vegetables they will 
gain physical immortality. Others think if Jesus can 
heal my body why should he not exempt it entirely from 
death and the grave? These false notions spring from 
not understanding that the immortality of the body 
does not belong at all to the region of probationary 
grace, but that it lies in the region of glorification, be- 
yond the state of probation and of saving faith. 

The thousands of persons that Jesus healed while 
on the earth were healed as a part of his work of pro- 
bationary grace, and all of them ultimately died, and 
he never once hinted about giving immortality except 
at that day when he would raise the just from the 
dead. The healing of disease while on probation is 
included in the kingdom of grace because it relieves 
suffering and shows forth the compassion of Jesus, and 
leads people to accept him more fully, and for the pur- 
pose of being witnesses for Christ and of using their 
health in his service. 

All these things lie in the region of grace. But as 



92 BibU Truth Library. 

soon as any one begins to stretch and strain them- 
selves into some awful tension after physical immortal- 
ity they at once become the victims of evil spirits, who 
are always hunting for people on to whom they can 
fasten. Healing the body of disease is distinctively a 
work of grace, but exempting it from all immortality is 
distinctively a work of glory. We must keep these 
scriptural distinctions in our minds, or we will go to 
wreck both in faith and practice. Hence, divine heal- 
ing should never strictly be spoken of as the redemption 
of the body, which is a Scripture word that refers ex- 
pressly to raising the dead body from the grave. And 
yet we do and may use the word redemption in a gen- 
eral way to include all the economy of grace. 

III. Eedemption in relation to glorification. The 
kingdom of glory includes all the ultimate results of the 
redemption wrought by Jesus, such as raising the dead 
bodies of believers, or translating and glorifying their 
bodies at his second coming; also, the complete rec- 
tification of the mental faculties, and the uniting of 
body and soul in a form of transcendant glory, like the 
glorified Christ, never again to be separated, or to be 
sick, or subject to pain, or mistake, or deformity, or 
weakness of any kind, but fitted in everything for a 
heavenly and divine mode of existence. The work of 
glorification is of divine sovereignty, the crowning and 
consummating of what Jesus purchased by his death. 
Eedemption is related to the glorified body in three di- 
rections. In the first place it is the avenging of the 
believer's body on the devil for all he has done in 
bringing sin into the world, and inflicting so much 



The Heavenly Life. 93 

suffering and death on our bodies. When we are raised 
to a blazing and beautiful immortality, Satan will re- 
ceive his punishment for all the evil he has done to us. 
Hence the day of resurrection will be the day of di- 
vine revenges for all God's people. In the second 
place the redemption of our bodies has a relation to re- 
wards, for it is in our glorified bodies that we are to 
receive the ocean streams of divine rewards for our 
faith and service while we lived in a state of humilia- 
tion and subjection to death. It is in these bodies that 
we are now to serve Christ, and we are told we shall be 
rewarded according to the deeds done in the body, and 
when we receive our glorified bodies it will be in those 
bodies that we receive our rewards. When the righteous 
die they enter into rest, and their works do follow them, 
so their rewards will be poured into the glorified body. 
This is the thought that runs through a large part of 
the 8th of Eomans, especially from verses 18 to 28. In 
the third place the redemption of the body is directly 
related to the divine glory, because, being fashioned 
like the glorified body of Jesus, it will be one of the 
most beautiful and transcendent vehicles for the show- 
ing forth of the glory of God. 

In such a radiant form there will be concentrated 
all the divine perfections, and wherever such a body 
moves it will be a floating orb of light to illustrate the 
glory of God as Creator, Eedeemer, Law-giver, Father 
Eewarder and King. Such a glorified body will serve 
as a miniature history of redemption, and will reveal 
the character and purposes of God in all the vast do- 
mains of nature, grace and glory. It will be the crown 



94 



Bible Truth Library. 



and summit of the results of the incarnation and 
death of Jesus. So we see redemption in its full sweep 
covers nature and the natural life unconditionally, and 
thus covers the regions of grace on the condition of 
faith, and then includes the resurrection and glorifica- 
tion of the body on the conditions of divine sovereignty 
and the justice of his rewards. 




CHAPTER X. 

MAKING UP JEWELS. 

Thus far in the history of the world, every age or 
dispensation has come to a close in a similar manner. In 
the end of each age there is a climax of wickedness on 
the part of mankind, and a decline or falling away of a 
majority of those who profess to serve God, calling forth 
the judgments of God ; and on the other hand an intense 
religious heroism and devotion on the part of the few 
who have constituted the jewels of God gathered out 
from the wreckage of that dispensation. Such was the 
case when God took Abraham and Sarah from the ffim- 
rod age, and such was the case when God gathered the 
Hebrews from the wreckage of the wicked nations of 
Egypt and Canaan, and such was the case at the close of 
the Jewish age when He gathered the little company in 
the upper room at Pentecost, and such will be the case 
at the end of this age. 

The prophecy of Malachi draws a picture which very 
accurately fitted in with the close of the Jewish age, and 
will just as truly fit in with the close of the church age. 
After describing the terrible condition in the nation, he 
gives us an account of a little band of holy ones that met 
frequently for prayer and religious conversation. "Then 
they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, 
and the Lord hearkened and heard it; and a book of 

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96 Bible Truth Library. 

remembrance was written before Him, for them that 
feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And 
they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day 
when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a 
man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall 
ye return, and discern between the righteous and the 
wicked, between him that serveth God and him that 
serveth Him not/' Mai. 3 : 16-18. 

These verses present all the features applicable to 
God's true saints at the winding up of every age; and 
they are to have their perfect accomplishment at the 
approaching close of the present Church Age. Let us 
notice these words in detail. 

1. "They that feared the Lord/' The word "fear" 
is the Old Testament term for the expression of godli- 
ness and holiness as the word "love" is the more special 
term used in the New Testament. The Old Testament 
standard was "walking in the fear of the Lord all the 
day long," but the New Testament standard is "walk- 
ing in love as God's dear children." This kind of fear 
is not the slavish, tormenting fear, which is to be cast 
out by perfect love, but the basis of reverence and a 
dread of sin, out of which comes godliness. It is that 
fear which is "the beginning of wisdom." Fear and love 
are the two hemispheres to holiness. Fear is the law 
side, and love is the grace side. Fear by itself would 
lead to sadness, and love by itself would lead to license. 
Fear is the root, and love is the tree. Fear runs down 
into the dark, cool shadows of the earth, and takes 
firm hold -on the rocks of truth, while love runs up in 
the sunlight, bearing bloom and fruit. Fear gives stam- 



The Heavenly Life. 97 

ina to the gentleness of love. Fear is the buckram in 
the white robe of holiness. We really fear those most 
whom we love most. Thus fear is the Old Testament 
form of love, and love is the New Testament form of 
fear. 

2. "They spake often one to another/' Eeligious 
conversation, personal testimony to the inward opera- 
tions of Divine grace, is the badge of all true piety, and 
has marked every period of religious revival in the 
history of the world. 

With the death of the class meeting among the Meth- 
odists is the death of all their fruitfulness. Verbal tes- 
timony to heart felt salvation is a double necessity, for 
in the first place out of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth will speak, and in the second place if the testi- 
mony is stopped, the grace will leak out of the heart. It 
is thrilling to read the history of the various revivals 
through the dark ages, among the Waldenses, the French 
huguenots, the German reformers, the Scotch covenant- 
ers, the early Quakers, and then the Methodists, and now 
in the modern holiness movement, and trace the same 
feature among them all, of reaction from formalism, 
and of personal testimony to the inward work of the 
Holy Spirit. Just as fire will die without ventilla- 
tion, so the heat and power of Divine love will die out 
of the heart without testimony. Malachi distinctly inti- 
mates that this religious mark of talking about salva- 
tion, and giving personal testimony to it will, in a spe- 
cial way, distinguish the holy ones who will comprise 
God's jewels in that day when Christ comes. That will 
be a sad day for the great multitude of church mem- 



98 Bible Truth Library. 

bers who have no relish for conversing on holiness, and 
no testimony to the cleansing blood of the Lamb. 

3. "The Lord heard it, and a book of remembrance 
was written before him." God appreciates being praised 
and loved, and every testimony to salvation spreads the 
honor of His Son, and magnifies, and advertises His 
grace. Hence in all generations He has had His record- 
ing angels keep an accurate record of the religions con- 
versations and testimonies of His people. This "book 
of remembrance" referred to here, is not the same as the 
Book of Life. The Apostle John shows us the difference 
between the Book of Life, which simply registers the 
names of those who are saved, and tells us there were 
other books out of which the great and the small are to 
be judged, according to their works (Eev. 20:12). We 
must distinguish between the simple fact of being saved 
and the receiving of rewards. Salvation is by faith, but 
rewards are always according to works. Salvation is re- 
ceived in the present moment, but according to Scrip- 
ture, no servant of God is ever rewarded till the second 
coming of Christ. Eev. 22 :12. 

Salvation is received secretly in the heart, but the 
reward will be open and visible (Matt. 6:6). 

All the saints in heaven will be equally saved from 
sin, but there will be well-nigh an infinity of variety and 
degrees of rewards. In order to get a Scripture idea of 
this book of remembrance, out of which the saints will 
each receive his appropriate reward, let us notice an inci- 
dent in the life of Queen Esther. Haman had plotted to 
kill the Jews, and the saintly old Mordecai and the other 
Jews had fasted and prayed for deliverance. 



The Heavenly Life. 99 

The night before, King Ahasuerus could not sleep, 
and thinking that something had gone wrong in his gov- 
ernment, he called for the book of records in which the 
daily chronicles of the government were kept. On read- 
ing this book of remembrance, he found that the humble 
Mordecai had never been rewarded for delivering the 
king's life from a plot of murderers, and at once had the 
good man exalted and rewarded for his fidelity. In a 
similar way the government of God is conducted accord- 
ing to absolute justice to every creature, both as to re- 
wards and punishments. 

There are certain things of a temporal nature which 
are rewarded or punished in this life, but those things 
which are spiritual have their rewards or punishments 
in the age to come. These rewards for God's people will 
extend down to the infinitesimal things, as our Savior 
tells us, even to our words, or a cup of cold water. And 
Malachi says that the book of remembrance is written 
for those who feared the Lord, and thought upon His 
name. God's name is His character, including all of His 
blessed perfections, and every time that one of His serv- 
ants deliberately fastens his thought upon God in loving 
meditation, or adoring fear, it is registered in the book 
of remembrance. In the sight of God a thought is an 
act, and if His punishments extend down to evil 
thoughts, so His bright and beautiful rewards are to be 
bestowed upon every act of mental worship. 

Holy fear is in the heart, and worshipful thoughts 
are in the mind, and these are the two poles of that cur- 
rent of loving fire which marks a life of entire devotion 
to Jesus. If our thoughts upon God are recognized and 

L.ofC. 



100 Bible Truth Library. 

registered by Him as acts of loving worship, and it is so 
easy to think of Him, and if we can think of Him under 
all circumstances, and in every position of life, why are 
we not pouring out around His blessed throne ceaseless 
showers of bright, silvery thoughts to gladden His heart, 
and repay Him in some little measure, for that eternal 
sea of thought which He is constantly pouring over us 
even from everlasting. 

4. "They shall be mine in that day when I make up 
my jewels," or as the margin reads, my "special treas- 
ures." The expression "they shall be mine" does not 
imply that they are not already the Lord's, but that 
when Jesus returns they shall be His by open acceptance 
of them, and they shall be blessedly and eternally appro- 
priated as His special property forever. We say the 
crown of a kingdom belongs to the heir apparent, but on 
the day of coronation the crown becomes his by an au- 
gust and public act of appropriation ; and so the saints 
are to be publicly appropriated as the Lord's possession 
in the day of His return. The expression "that day" 
refers to the second coming of Christ, called "the day 
of the Lord," that is the dispensation of His open mani- 
fested glory and kingdom on earth. The expression, 
"make up my jewels," refers to the gathering together 
the elect saints of all generations, and forming them 
into that glorious portable city which St. John says is 
the Bride of the Lamb. 

Every one who is saved from hell and sin is a treasure 
to God, but this word refers to a class whose entire de- 
votion made them "special treasures," or "crown jewels," 
that are to fill the highest rank in the coming kingdom. 



The Heavenly Life. 101 

The Scriptures abundantly teach that not all of the 
saved ones compose the Bride of the Lamb, but that in 
every generation there have been those who were entirely 
yielded to God, sanctified by His Spirit, who had the 
martyr metal in them, and these are to compose the 
queenly company who sit by Christ's side in the coming 
age, "dressed in the gold of Ophir," who "are to be 
princes in all the earth ;" and beside this company there 
are others spoken of as "honorable women/' and as "the 
daughter of Tyre/' and as "the virgins her companions." 
Psalm. 45 :9-16. 

5. "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son." 
What can this mean ? It does not refer to sparing them 
from hell, for all the saved ones are spared from that 
place. It does not mean from death, for millions of holy 
ones have died. It must refer to sparing them from 
some calamity or form of judgment that not only sin- 
ners have but that unfaithful servants pass through. It 
would seem clear that it refers to sparing the most de- 
voted saints from the great tribulation judgments, simi- 
lar to taking in the five wise virgins, and leaving on the 
outside the virgins who had no oil and went into the 
tribulation. But how can this be applied to all those 
who have died ? We know not the details, but it is pos- 
itively affirmed in Scripture, that among all the saved 
ones, whether dead or alive, at Christ's coming some will 
have advantages, honors and blessings, that others do 
not have. The apostle speaks of those who will be saved, 
and yet says, "they shall suffer loss." 1 Cor. 3 :12-15. 
Thus the jewel saints are spared from these losses, and if 
living, spared from the great tribulation. 






102 Bible Truth Library. 

6. "Then shall ye return." This indicates clearly 
that the real saints of the Lord are first gathered out 
from the earth, and taken away from that awful period 
of tribulation, which Jesus says is to exceed anything 
the world has ever known, and then afterward are to 
return back to the earth with their Master. 

There is no way possible to understand the reading 
of this Scripture, except in the light of the pre-millen- 
nial coming of Jesus. 

7. "Ye shall discern between the righteous and the 
wicked." That is, after the saints, who have been spared 
from the tribulation judgments, return with their Lord 
back to the earth, they having been glorified, will be 
endowed with all spiritual gifts, including judicial au- 
thority, to have power over the nations. The word dis- 
cern" implies perfect spiritual vision, to read the secrets 
of men's souls as quickly and easily as you discern colors 
in a landscape. The New Testament words to "judge" 
and to "discern" are the same words in the Greek. Hence 
this passage from Malachi positively affirms that the 
crown jewel saints are to "return" back to this earth 
with spiritual gifts and power to discern and judge all 
the nations that survive the tribulation period, and these 
high honors of "judging the world," as Paul says, will be 
a part of those magnificent rewards for having feared the 
name, and having frequently "spoken one to another" 
about God, and for all their good deeds which were re- 
corded in the book of remembrance. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CHRIST CALLING HIS BRIDE. 

"The voice of my beloved ; behold he cometh leaping 
upon the mountains ; skipping upon the hills." "My be- 
loved spake and said unto me, Eise up, my love, my 
fair one, and come away." The Song of Solomon will 
never be understood in its completeness until Jesr^s 
comes, and gathers His elect saints to the marriage sup- 
per of the Iamb. In the second chapter of the Songs of 
Solomon, we have a prophetic vision of Chrises second 
coming and gathering out His bridehood saints unto 
Himself. Let us notice in detail the various points in 
the vision. 

1. The voice of the Bridegroom. The power and 
sweetness of this voice is referred to many times in 
Scripture. "Let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy 
voice, and thy countenance is beautiful." "My sheep 
hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me." 
John the Baptist said that he was the friend of the 
Bridegroom, and rejoiced when he heard the Bride- 
groom's voice. The Apostle John heard the voice of 
Jesus in the Isle of Patmos, and said it was like the 
sound of many waters. 

Jesus, referring to the omnipotent penetration of 
His voice, says that "the dead which are in their graves 

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10-1 Bible Truth Library. 

shall hear His voice, and come forth." We are told that 
Adam heard that voice talking in the garden of Eden. 

Jesus is emphatically the voice of the Father; the 
eternal outspoken Word from the inner bosom of the 
Father. The voice of Christ to the soul includes all 
methods by which He awakens, and wins, and woos, and 
communicates His will, His knowledge, His fellowship 
to the obedient believer. He may speak to the soul by a 
thought, or a vision, or a spiritual sensation, or a spir- 
itual articulation of His word to the inner senses; but 
whatever form the voice may assume, it penetrates to 
the depth of the inner spirit, and is recognized as 
something above the earthly, and the human, and as a 
divine communication whose power and authenticity is 
never questioned by the loving, trusting heart. 

In every generation, those servants of God who have 
been entirely yielded to Him, have distinctly recog- 
nized the Bride-groom's voice in the depth of their 
souls. And in every generation, those who have been 
called into the bridehood of Christ, have had sweet 
words of such divine relationship spoken in their heart, 
and have had great premonitions of Christ's return to 
this earth, and of unutterable joys and honors which 
will then be conferred upon those who in this life have 
entered into a real living union with God. 

2. Christ's special manifestations to His bride. 
"Behold He standeth behind our wall; He looketh 
forth at the windows, showing Himself through the lat- 
tice." 

If we group together several expressions in this 
Song of Solomon, we get a picture like the following: 



The Heavenly Life. 105 

King David has a palace on a high hill overlooking the 
surrounding country. Beyond the city wall the king 
has a large vineyard, in which many men and maideus 
are working. Among the maidens working in the vine- 
yard, and getting sun-burnt, is the humble, beautiful 
daughter of an honorable Jewish family, whos-3 sisters 
taunt her for doing such humble labor, and gettting 
sun-burnt and neglecting her own selfish interests 
home. But the prince, Solomon, is in love with her, and 
when he walks on the veranda of his father's palace, he 
signals to her through the window lattice, and, as the 
margin indicates, flourishes his hand in love tokens, 
which she perceives and sweetly responds to, while at 
work in his father's vineyard. This explains all those 
expressions when the bride says, "they made me the 
keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard — my 
selfish interests — have I not kept." "I am sun-burnt — 
for the word 'Triack" would be translated "sun-burnt" 
— but beautiful, ye daughters of Jerusalem." "Frown 
not upon me" (the word "look" signifies to frown, or to 
look with a scowl). She says to her proud sisters who 
scowl upon her, because she works in the vineyard and 
bemeans herself with such humble service; "frown not 
upon me because I am sunburnt, because the sun hath 
frowned upon me; my mother's children were angry 
with me." How true it always is that unsanctified chureii 
members, who cultivate their own selfish vineyards, look 
with angry scowls upon the humble sanctified ones, who 
go forth beyond the city walls, and sectarian fences, to 
bear the heat and burden of the day, and endure the 
sun-scorching of persecution, ostracism, and various 



106 Bible Truth Library. 

trials, which timid and selfish Christians are not will- 
ing to bear. 

But the King's son, the Divine Solomon, from his 
Father's palace on high, looks out upon the humble sun- 
burnt saints at work in His Father's vineyard, to whom 
He is secretly espoused, and through the lattice of the 
skies manifests Himself to them in such vivid tokens of 
love, as to cause them a joy, notwithstanding their 
trials, far surpassing the comforts of other professed 
Christians, who are not utterly abandoned to a love- 
service for the glory of their Lord. 

3. The translation of the bride. "My beloved 
spake, and said unto me, Eise up my love, my fair one, 
and come away." As the bride must first know the voice 
of her beloved, and then the private personal manifes- 
tation of his love, so in the next place there comes the 
time when he calls the bride to depart from her old 
home, and go with him to his own mansion. All these 
steps are carried out, both in Christ's dealing with the 
individual soul espoused to Him, and also in that great 
body of elect saints that constitute the perfected bride 
of the Lamb. And so these words are to be fulfilled 
when Christ comes in the air, and with His omnipotent 
voice calls the bodies of His dead saints to rise up from 
their graves, and calls the living wise virgins who have 
the oil of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, to rise up 
from the earth, and go away with the Bridegroom into 
that mansion of pure gold which He has built for them. 
When Jesus returned to Bethany, after His absence 
across the Jordan, He called for both the living and 
the dead ; for Martha said to Mary, "Arise, for the Mas- 



The Heavenly Life. 107 

ter is come, and calleth for thee" ; and then in a few mo- 
ments, He called unto Lazarus to arise and come forth 
from the grave. 

This incident is prophetic of the time when He re- 
turns from His long absence, and will again speak to 
the living saints like Mary, and the dead saints like 
Lazarus, the words of our text, "Kise up my love, my 
fair one, and come away." 

4. The Summer Age. "For lo, the winter is past, 
the rain is over and gone, and the flowers appear on the 
earth." 

The long domination of Satan and sin, the protract- 
ed generations of corrupt human governments, with 
war, and whiskey, and oppression, and with all their at- 
tendant sorrows, constitutes the long winter of human 
history ; but when Christ returns to reign on earth with 
His glorified saints, this long winter of wickedness will 
come to its close, and the reign of righteousness will 
bring the glorious summer to the nations of the earth* 
This Scriputure, like hundreds of others, is to have a 
double fulfillment; first in the individual believer, and 
then in the world at large. Thus, when the believer is 
purified through the blood of Jesus, and the Comforter 
comes to abide, the spiritual winter, with the cold, wet 
rains of anguish and moral misery terminates; and the 
summer of pure love spreads itself abroad in the heart 
and life. But this is only a preliminary fulfillment of 
these precious words, for the great world is like a giant 
individual, and Satan is to the world what the car- 
nal mind is to the soul, and when Satan is dethroned 
from the world, and chained in the abyss, and Jesus 



108 Bible Truth Library. 

sets up His theocratic kingdom on earth, the summer of 
millennial glory will fill the world as the waters fill the 
sea. Christ often compares His second coming to the 
coming of summer. Luke 21 :27-31. 

5. The singing age. "The time for the singing of 
birds is come/' The word "birds" is in italics, which in- 
dicates that it is not in the original Hebrew Scripture, 
and the passage would be much better rendered "the 
singing age has come." In this age, as well as all past 
ages, there is pre-eminently the fact of weeping and 
sorrow, and even the best saints of God find the words 
of Christ true that in the present world (or age) they 
should have tribulation. Human history in the present 
age is marked with sickness, pain and death. 

Not only the wicked, but the wisest and holiest of 
men, must endure poverty, disappointment, temptation, 
sore trials, loneliness, persecution, and at the very best 
condition of things in the present age, there is much 
inevitable suffering and weeping. But there is a better 
age coming, and God's enemies on earth are to become 
a footstool for the peaceful steps of the King of eternal 
love, and there is to come an age of singing and world- 
wide gladness, in which universal joy and music will 
reign pre-eminent. The Scriptures abound with prophe- 
cies of that day. "For ye shall go out with joy, and 
be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills 
shall break forth before you into singing, and all the 
trees of the field shall clap their hands." It is well to 
note that these words are spoken in connection with the 
promise that Christ as David shall be a leader of the na- 
tions on the earth. See Isa. 55 :3-12. 



The Heavenly Life. 10$ 

The Apostle Paul refers to this singing age in the 
eighth of Komans, when he contrasts the "groaning of 
creation" in the present age, to that blessed period when 
this groaning creation "shall be delivered from its pres- 
ent bondage, into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God." A great many of the Psalms prophesy an age of 
universal singing. "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord 
all the earth; sing unto the Lord with the harp, with 
trumpets and cornets; let the hills be joyful together 
before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth; 
with righteousness shall He judge the world." Psalm 
98. Please notice that this world-wide singing is dis- 
tinctly mentioned as a consequence of the coming of the 
Lord to judge and govern the world. The bridehood 
saints that are translated or resurrected, after being re- 
ceived by the Bridegroom in the air, are to come back 
with Him, and through their dominion, under Christ, 
over the nations on earth, the whole world will be filled 
with anthems of praise, which is referred to about fifty 
times in the prophecies on that subject. 

6. The world-wide fullness of the Holy Spirit. This 
is referred to by the expression "the voice of the turtle 
is heard in your land." The word "turtle" in this verse 
refers to the dove, and the dove is a synonym of the 
Holy Spirit. Hence, in the coming age, when the heav- 
enly Bridegroom and His bridehood saints shall reign 
on the earth, the voice of the Holy Spirit will be heard 
everywhere in the land ; and instead of a few feeble re- 
vivals, such as we have in the present age, where only a 
few scores, or at least a few hundreds, are regenerated 
against fearful odds of difficulty, then the Holy Spirit 



110 Bible Truth Library. 

will inundate the world, and millions to be saved in 
those great millennial revivals, when a nation shall be 
born in a day. The words of Joel about the Spirit being 
poured out upon all flesh will then be fulfilled more 
perfectly than ever in the past. 

Every successive age has been characterized by a 
great increase of the operations of the Holy Spirit. In 
the age before the flood, He strove with men, with very 
few results of saving power. In the Jewish age the 
Spirit was manifest in more than ten-fold degree over 
the ante-diluvian age; and in the Christian age the 
Holy Spirit has been given in a thousand-fold greater 
measure than in the Jewish age; and on the same ra- 
tio, in the coming millennial age, the Spirit will be 
poured out on the nations in all the earth a million-fold 
more than in the present age, so that it will be emphat- 
ically true, the dove-like voice of the Holy Spirit will be 
heard in all the earth. 



CHAPTER XII. 

DIVINE RECOLLECTION. 

In all the history of spiritual literature, one subject 
of the greatest importance is that of Divine recollection. 
As many who read this may not have had facilities for 
extensive religious reading, it may be well to give a sort 
of definition of what Divine recollection is. To be recol- 
lected refers to a state where the mind is calm, and all 
the faculties are collected with such attentiveness to our 
surroundings, or relation with God, our adjustment to 
providence, and the work we have in hand, as to be con- 
sciously awake and observant in all these directions. It 
is called Divine recollection, because the mental faculties 
are collected in God, in a state of mental prayer. The 
following points may help us to a clearer view of the 
subject : 

First. Divine recollection is to pay a double atten- 
tion to God and ourselves. It is to keep the mind stayed 
on the Lord, His universal presence and providence, and 
at the same time to keep an eye upon our position before 
•God, to watch the dispositions or thoughts that spring 
up within us, and to carefully remember the duties we 
have in hand, and to constantly associate ourselves and 
our work with God. It is similar to the attention which 
a locomotive engineer gives to his engine and to the 
track, keeping his hand on the throttle, and his eye upon 

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112 Bible Truth Library. 

the iron rails ahead. It is a task which requires firm 
nerves, and close mental application, for the mind must 
keep up a double action through the hand in one direc- 
tion, and through the eye in another. This same double 
action of attractiveness is also exhibited in the helmsman 
on a ship, who must have his thoughts constantly collect- 
ed upon the compass, the wheel, and the open sea that 
stretches away before him. To think of God, without 
constant reference to our conduct and character, would 
produce only cold, speculative philosophy about him; 
on the other hand, to think only of ourselves, without 
constantly yielding ourselves up to the will of God, 
would produce self-righteous Phariseeism. But this 
double action of calm, deliberate recollection of God 
and ourselves, constantly enthrones Him in our lives, 
and constantly blends all our movements with His 
grace and providence. 

Second. There is a necessity of all Christians who 
advance in holiness, of forming this habit of Divine 
recollection, or no headway can be made in the things 
of God. When the soul is first converted, or first sancti- 
fied, there is a freshet of celestial rain, which accom- 
plishes wonders for the soul, and seems to carry us by 
a heavenly momentum a good ways on our journey, with- 
out any special effort on our part; and multitudes of 
Christians expect the great showers that inundate the 
soul at such times, to nearly relieve them of any delib- 
erate effort to use their mental powers in acquiring the 
knowledge of God. 

In a very wet season farmers cannot plow, and the 
rain seems to monopolize the work, but when the water 



The Heavenly Life. 113 

has run off the ground, unless they diligently get to 
work with their plows, the ground will bake hard and 
strangle the crop. There is something just like this in 
the spiritual life. When the freshets of grace are pour- 
ing down on the soul, they seem to supercede any neces- 
sity for spiritual reading, or plodding perseverance, or 
habits of deliberate recollection, or patient interior men- 
tal prayer. But when these sweet floods have run their 
legitimate course, unless the soul applies itself to a life 
of diligence in plowing the soil, and training the vines, 
and bringing the mental powers under the discipline of 
Divine recollection, the soil of the heart will soon pack 
hard, the mind run to weeds, and the tongue run away 
with loquacity, and the very floods of grace will yield no 
fruit. Divine recollection is like keeping the mind in a 
heavenly climate, where all the graces can grow and 
ripen to perfection. Constant recollections in God, is 
that even temperature of the soul, in which it can ren- 
der the best service, perform the greatest works of right- 
eousness, and at the same time put into these works the 
most solid devotion to God. Salvation starts in the 
emotions, but if it does not take hold on the mental 
powers, and fasten itself into persistent efforts of spirit- 
ual thinking, and reading, and praying, it will inevitably 
pass away like the evaporation of morning dew. Here is 
where thousands who were once shouting happy in the 
Lord have failed, and are now twice dead, because they 
never, from the depths of their nature, determined to 
make Christ-likeness the business of their lives. They 
would be saints, providing they could float down the riv- 
er all the time on a raft in a revival freshet. Only a few 



114 Bible Truth Library. 

Christian people put their brains in the service of God. 
They may believe in loving God with all their hearts, 
but not with all their minds, and all their will power. 

Third. The blessed habit of Divine recollection 
must be acquired by degrees, and is not to be misunder- 
stood with the instantaneous cleansing. Still, some per- 
sons acquire it a great deal more rapidly than others, 
and great trouble, or mortification of spirit, wonderfully 
facilitates a soul in acquiring deep recollectedness of 
God ; for whatever most thoroughly tears us away from 
the world, or knocks the earthly props away from under 
us, or detaches us from all creatures, and drives us most 
profoundly into the bosom of God, will serve to spir- 
itualize the mind, and assist in forming habits of con- 
stant mental prayer. There is no easy, royal road to the 
practice of Divine recollection; it must be acquired 
with effort, yet not with any over straining or vehemence 
of spirit, for any effort of the soul that chafes or dis- 
courages, or produces turbulence, is not of grace. One 
of the steps in the acquisition of Divine recollection is 
that of silence, or checking ourselves when we are about 
to speak, and mentally asking ourselves, is there a real 
need for us to speak, and what good will it do, and is 
our speaking a mere impulse of self. Millions of words 
would never be uttered, if professing Christians, if even 
the professors of holiness, would practice this mortifica- 
tion of silence. The crucifixion of the tongue to so 
much talk comes after the crucifixion of inbred sin in 
the heart, and is accomplished by very few. Another 
step to holy recollection is to check all eagerness for the 
hearing of news, and wanting to know everything about 



The Heavenly Life. 115 

the foolish world around. Sinners and baby Christians 
pride themselves on keeping up with the times, which 
simply means, without their knowing it, they are keep- 
ing in with Satan's procession. 

Newspapers keep multitudes from a life of prayer, 
and the interior knowledge of themselves, and commun- 
ion with God. The news we ought to know can very 
quickly be learned. 

Another step to recollection, is to avoid any effort 
to make a show of our religion, to study simplicity, 
never to make an ostentation of holiness, but to live as 
holy as possible without ever wanting to show it off. 
Nothing would be a greater crucifixion to some Chris- 
tians than to refrain themselves from ever making a dis- 
play of their religion. 

Hence, in the practice of silence, or the speaking of 
few words when in company, we should never do it in 
such a way as to render ourselves singular, ill-mannered, 
but with modesty and sweetness of spirit. 

Another method of recollection, is not to over-burden 
ourselves with, work or manifold cares. Nature likes to 
bustle, and rush, and do many things, but grace is just 
the opposite. 

Fourth. It is in a state of Divine recollection that 
we can catch the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, and de- 
tect the guiding hand of our heavenly Father's provi- 
dence. It is the only condition of clear spiritual vision, 
where the soul can detect the approaches of temptation, 
and the devices of Satan, which always have a look of 
reason, or beauty, or winsome successfulness, or philan- 
thropic air about them. The Devil paints all his plans 



116 Bible Truth Library. 

with something plausible, and it requires a spiritual eye 
that is clear, and steady, and slow, to look through the 
point, and discover the fraud. And finally it is only in 
a state of Divine recollection that we keep in a frame of 
mental prayer. When the soul has a holy recollected- 
ness, it can at any time engage in prayer, with some 
depth and fervor of heart. 

For lack of recollection, when many Christians go to 
prayer, it takes all their time to get disengaged from the 
rush and noise of life, and to empty out the perplexities 
from their hearts, and the images from their minds, and 
when the season of prayer is ended, they have scarcely 
reached the starting place of real prayer to their heaven- 
ly Father. It is holy recollection in the soul that gives 
solidity and weight to Christian life, it shuts off wild- 
ness, foolishness, levity, talkativeness, it keeps the men- 
tal faculties elevated, well balanced, and in an attitude 
to meet Jesus. This habit of Divine recollection is pre- 
cisely what the apostle means, "by girding up the loins 
of our mind, and being sober, and hoping to the end, for 
the grace we shall receive at the revelation of Jesus 
Christ" 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE JOYS OF HEAVEN 



When some poor family in the old world contem- 
plates emigrating to that new and wonderful country 
in the West for the betterment of all their circumstances 
with what thrilling interest they gather all the informa- 
tion they can about the new world. They eagerly de- 
vour books and maps describing the country, its moun- 
tains and prairies, its rivers and mines, its climate and 
productiveness, and methods of travel, as to how to get 
there, and what the cost will be. All these characteris- 
tics will mark the conduct of those souls that are true 
emmigrants from earth to heaven. From the days of 
Abraham till now, the life of a true servant of God has 
been that of a pilgrim. The learned and saintly Dean 
Alford had inscribed upon his tomb, "The lodge of a 
pilgrim on his way to the New Jerusalem." Both a 
prophet and an apostle unite in telling us that the joys 
of the heavenly kingdom are greater than the heart of 
man can comprehend. Ever since Abraham got a vision 
of the city which hath foundations, and was so charmed 
with the prospect of the sweet immortal joys in that 
city, that he never would build himself a house, but 
lived in tents, the saints of all generations have looked 
forward to the supreme happiness of that heavenly 
country; and hoped, and sung and meditated, and 

(117) 



118 Bible Truth Library. 

sweetly longed to reach its ever-blessed enjoyments. 
There are three vast empires in the universal creation, 
recognized in Scripture as Nature, Grace and Glory. 
We first live in a state of nature, and learn much of its 
character, its laws, its beauties, its pleasures, and also of 
its fallen condition, its vanity and transitoriness. When 
we become real Christians we enter, by the new birth, 
into the realm of grace. The system of grace is a dis- 
tinct economy in the creation of God for the saving of a 
fallen world, involving a plan of redemption by the in- 
carnation and sacrificial death of the second Person in 
the Godhead, and a life of faith, until our probation 
ends. This realm of grace has its joys, and victories, 
though mingled in manifold ways with the ministry of 
sorrow, and of sore temptations and trials. Beyond the 
realm of grace comes the realm of glory, with its un- 
measured vastness of liberty and honor, of happiness 
and unfading immortality. It is upon this realm of 
heavenly glory that we want to fix our eyes for a few 
moments, that by looking at the future glory we may 
strengthen the present conditions of grace. 

Perhaps we ought first of all to form some scriptural 
idea of what is meant by the word "heaven." This word 
as used in the Bible, is a large, generic term, including 
all the sinless creation of God outside of this world, and 
outside of the hell, which we are told was specially pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels. The Hebrew word 
for heaven is in the plural, and literally means "things 
heaved up"; that is, all things elevated above this world. 
The Greek word for heaven is frequently in the plural 
number, and includes all things above the earth. The 



The Heavenly Life. 119 

word signifies things in the air and in the sky. In scores 
of places the term heaven includes our atmosphere, and 
cloud regions, which is the first heaven. It next in- 
cludes the sky, with its sun, moon and stars, which is 
the second heaven. Beyond that is the third heaven, 
to which Paul was caught up, including the unknown 
localities of Paradise, the ahode of departed saints, and 
the throne of God, the divine court, where countless an- 
gels minister and worship. Now, when we speak of the 
joys of heaven that are in reserve for the righteous, we 
must widen our thought, according to the extent of 
Scripture teaching, to embrace all that belongs to the 
glorified and immortal state. We must also remember 
that when this world has passed through its history of 
redemption, and when its various dispensations of grace 
have been merged into the age of glory, it will be in 
the boundaries of heaven, and a part of that blessed 
realm; hence, we now use the word heaven more espe- 
cially to apply to the glorified state of the saints, includ- 
ing the resurrection of the body, the marriage supper of 
the Lamb, the princely authority over the nations with 
Jesus in His millennial reign, and the beatific vision of 
seeing the face of God, and the glorious ministries and 
immortal honors that are to come after the institution of 
the new heavens and the new earth, and the domesti- 
cating of the glorified saints in their mansions in the 
city of pure gold, the New Jerusalem. 

1. The Glorified Body. All our best thoughts 
in connection with the joys of possessing a glorified body 
must be formed out of faint analogies and consist mostly 
of negatives, as it will be in so many things the very 



120 Bible Truth Library. 

opposite of what the body is in the present state. The 
bodies of the resurrected saints will be of the same sub- 
stance they are now ; in fact the same bodies, according 
to Scripture ; but the particles composing the body will 
be transmuted from fleshly conditions into a spiritual- 
ized condition, from the mortal to the immortal; from 
being subject to physical law, they will be under spir- 
itual law, having passed from the realm of nature into 
the realm of glory. The Apostle says of the resurrected 
body of the saint, "that it is sown in corruption, it is 
raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, it is 
raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in 
power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual 
body/' 1 Cor. 15 :42-44. These four attributes of the 
glorified body cover the entire range of all the possibil- 
ties that we can imagine as belonging to an organism for 
its everlasting blessedness. The first attribute is that of 
immortality, perfect exemption from sickness, death, 
pain, old age, deformity, and every taint of decay. The 
second attribute is that of glory, which implies its 
brightness, as of light, also its beauty and radiance and 
sweet attractiveness, possessing every charm of form and 
motion, and every capacity for the most brilliant ex- 
pression of thought and feeling. The third attribute is 
that of power, angelic energy, which includes super- 
natural strength over all the forces of nature, such as 
wind, water, fire, gravitation, storms, lightning, and 
every known force in the realm of matter. It also in- 
cludes swiftness of motion, power to fly through space 
with the ease and velocity of light; as Jesus, after He 
rose from the dead, could instantly take His body 



The Heavenly Life. 121 

through stone walls without opening a door, or transfer 
it from the earth to the third heavens and back again in 
a few moments, and make it visible to men, and then 
vanish out of their sight at will. This word "power" 
also includes the vast and transcendent exercise of the 
five senses, of the voice, of the expression, of the feat- 
ures, so that the power of the glorified body of a saint 
will surpass any known power in all the realms of nature 
— power surpassing lightning, thunder, cyclones, earth- 
quakes, rolling oceans, blazing suns, or shooting stars, 
or all the combined energies of the armies of earth, or 
of the combined strength of all wicked men and evil 
angels. When the armies of Assyria besieged Hezekiah, 
God sent an angel one night, who, with the brush of his 
wing, swept the breath out of one hundred and eighty 
five thousand soldiers, and Jesus tells us that the power 
of a glorified saint shall be equal to that of the angels. 
The fourth attribute is that of being "spiritual," which 
includes its spotless purity, its being subtle like a flame, 
or a body of solidified light, with spiritual senses, ecsta- 
cies and joys entirely under the sway of spiritual laws, 
and of such marvelous capacity as to be flooded with 
divine bliss without being shattered by the torrents of 
heavenly gladness. Think of all the joys that the five 
senses can take in while we are in a state of nature ; how 
the eye can sweep landscapes of surpassing beauty, and 
ocean and mountain scenery of inspiring grandeur, and 
how the ear can be thrilled with inspiring or subduing 
strains of music, or the melody of magnificent poetry, 
and how the senses can drink in sweet odors and deli- 
cious tastes, and the manifold pleasures of feeling which 



122 Bible Truth Library. 

cover the body at every pore, and yet, all we know of 
these material pleasures form but a hint of those exult- 
ant joys of the glorified senses in an immortal body. 
Perhaps there will be senses belonging to our glorified 
bodies which we do not now possess, and of which we 
have no conception. Our glorified senses will possess a 
range of action, and a quickness and delicacy of power, 
which we cannot now imagine. The eye in our glorified 
bodies will be both telescopic and microscopic, so that 
we can see all objects millions and billions of miles away 
without having to use a telescope, and then we can see 
the infinitesimal atoms of all things at a glance, without 
having to use a microscope as we do now. What must 
the joys of vision be, which can sweep out in one tran- 
quil gaze over the multiplied splendor of millions of 
worlds, and at the same time delight itself in piercing 
through the perfections of God that lie hid away in 
every dew drop and every grain of sand ! At present our 
ears are capable of receiving only a small range of 
sounds, and if a sound rises too high, we fail to hear it ; 
or if it sinks below a certain pitch, we fail to hear it. 
There are thousands of sounds constantly vibrating 
through the earth and air, which are either too loud 
or too low for the capacity of our ears. Now think of 
the joys of sound in the boundless sweep of celestial 
music, which a glorified ear can receive. It would seem 
that the joys of the glorified bodies of the saints would 
alone constitute a whole heaven of bliss. 

2. The Glorified Mind. The heavenly joys of a 
glorified intellect will transcend even those of the glori- 
fied physical senses. In contrast with the intellectual 



The Heavenly Life. 123 

pleasures that we now have, our understandings will 
drink in unlimited seas of heavenly truth and beauty, 
perfectly free from all error or heresy, from all mistake, 
blunder or confusion of any kind whatever. On account 
of the imperfections in all earthly knowledge, we have 
to be re-learning, changing our views, correcting our 
measurements, and the joys of knowledge are crippled 
by uncertainty. But when our intellects see all things 
in their true light, and their beautiful harmony, and 
their correct relations with cloudless certainty, and with 
an unbroken tranquility of vision behold the secrets of 
creation, of science, and philosophy, perfectly free from 
all mist, and then have the mental capacity for embrac- 
ing in one vast system all the works of God in their vari- 
ous departments, and of seeing how the whole hangs sus- 
pended, like a beautiful dream, in the will of God, it 
will be an overflowing bliss to our understandings, be- 
yond anything we now know of the thrill of poetry, or 
the gladness of some new discovery. Then think of the 
expansion of our mental faculties in the glorified state, 
with the disclosure, it may be, of many new faculties for 
which we have no use in our earthly state, and these 
mental faculties so adapted to angels, and saints, and all 
created things, as to instantaneously read them, inter- 
pret them, understand them, and then to possess all 
this knowledge with a calm and perfect self-conscious- 
ness, without ever being burdened, or distracted, or over- 
excited by such worlds of intellectual truth and gran- 
deur ! To have minds forever delivered from all preju- 
dice, from all theological or geographical bias, from all 
sluggishness and monotony, and so invigorated as to for- 



124 Bible Truth Library. 

ever expatiate in God, with constant freshness and elas- 
ticity of action, and to keep poised in the highest 
flights of universal knowledge, will certainly constitute 
one of the great joys of the heavenly state. Just imag- 
ine all the intellectual pleasures that belong to this fal- 
len world, the joys of discovering new continents and 
islands, new stars, new substances in nature, new inven- 
tions, the joys of artists in painting pictures, in carving 
statues, in writing music, in writing poems, the joys of 
the composition of architects, of orators, of singers, and 
of scientists, and then take every sort of intellectual 
pleasure of the race, and lift it into the glorified state, 
and free it from all sorrow, or sin, from all disappoint- 
ment, error or imperfection, and stamp on it the fixed 
radiance of everlasting glory, and 3^ou have a faint image 
of the joys in reserve for the intellects of the saints in 
heaven. 

3. The Glorified Affections. The heart is the su- 
preme organ of gladness, and many instances have oc- 
curred in which animals and human beings have dropped 
dead from the sudden access of insupportable joy. What 
will all the joys of glorified senses and intellects be in 
comparison with the sweetness and the magnificence of 
celestial love. Sin has devastated the affections of the 
human heart more terribly than it has the human intel- 
lect, or the five senses. Hence, when we descant on the 
pleasures of the understanding, or of the bodily senses, 
the children of men can more readily understand what 
we are talking about. But when we come to that deeper 
world of the heart-nature, where sin has wrought its 
worst effects, it is more difficult for the people of this 



The Heavenly Life. 125 

world to understand the powerful operation of pure, un- 
selfish, heavenly love. Notwithstanding the havoc sin 
has made with the human heart, human love is still the 
strongest of all the forces in the human race, and out 
of this human love comes the larger portion of all earth- 
ly happiness, though it is often in a thousand ways in- 
termingled with sorrow, yet even sorrow in most in- 
stances is a form of pathetic love — love under bruises, 
or love in tears. The joys of heavenly love will be im- 
measurably beyond the joys of our mere natural affec- 
tions in this present life. 

In order to form a proper conception of what our 
love will be in the heavenly state, we must put together 
a few Bible facts. There are two distinct kinds of love 
mentioned in the Greek Testament — one is philos, which 
includes all the natural affections that men have by crea- 
tion; and the other is agape, which includes the pure 
love in the divine nature, and such love as fills heaven 
and the angels. Now we know there are great joys in 
natural love, even before people are regenerated and 
brought into saving grace. When souls are saved and 
living in Christ, they not only have their natural affec- 
tion, but they have that natural love brought up from 
nature into grace, and in addition to this, they have the 
love of God, which is entirely above nature, shed abroad 
in them by the Holy Spirit. Now, in the heavenly state, 
our natural love will not be annihilated, because it be- 
longs to us as a part of our creation, the same as our five 
senses, or our intellects, but this natural affection will be 
glorified and flooded to the uttermost with the hot ocean 
of Divine love and the two kinds of love will be forever 



126 Bible Truth Library. 

blended in an ineffable union, as that soul and body are 
united, even as Christ's divinity and humanity are 
united. The joys of heavenly love will consist in the 
following things: It will be a love that is perfectly 
spotless, utterly free from selfishness, or self-seeking, or 
danger from the flesh, or from any taint of ill-feeling, or 
stain of earthliness. It will be a love forever fixed in 
holiness, without variation, or ebb-tide, or coldness, but 
an unchanging sweetness of character like the blue color 
in the sky, or the saltness in the sea, an everlasting 
warmth of heart like the nature of God. It will be a 
universal love, overflowing all creation — God, angels and 
saints — and running down in constant waves of sweetest 
benevolence to all the lower orders of creation. It will 
be a most conscious and intelligent love, and not a latent, 
quiescent principle in the heart, but a wide-awake, all- 
glowing, all-melting, all-embracing, conscious love, most 
keenly felt, like a seraphic furnace in every glorified 
bosom. It will be an all-controlling love, possessing the 
intellect and the body and filling all the mental faculties, 
and all the glorified senses, in such a rapturous and all- 
embracing power, that every part of soul and body will 
do its bidding. Here is a passage from the saintly Fa- 
ber, on the bliss of heavenly love: "Oh, to turn our 
whole souls upon God, and souls thus expanded and thus 
glorified, to have our affections multiplied and magni- 
fied a thousandfold, and then girded up and strength- 
ened by immortality to bear the beauty of God, to be 
unveiled before us and when strengthened, to be rapt 
by it into a sublime amazement which has no similitude 
on earth, to be carried away by the inebriating torrents 



The Heavenly Life. 127 

of love, and yet be firm in the most steadfast adoration ; 
to have passionate desire, yet without tumult or disturb- 
ance ; to have the most bewildering intensity along with 
an unearthly calmness; to lose ourselves in God, and 
then find ourselves the more our own than ever; to 
love rapturously, and to be loved again still more rap- 
turously ; and then for our love to grow more rapturous 
still, and again the return of our love to be still out- 
stripping what we gave, and still the great transparent 
waters of God's love to flow over us and overwhelm us, 
until the vehemence of our peace and adoration and joy 
reach beyond our most venturesome imagination; what 
is all this, but for our souls to live a life of the most 
intelligent ecstacy of love, and yet not to be shivered by 
the fiery heat." 

4. Glorified Society. Paul speaks of the riches that 
God has "in His inheritance in the saints." A human 
soul redeemed and sanctified by the precious blood of 
God's own dear Son, and filled with the graces of the 
Holy Spirit, is a treasure far more precious to our heav- 
enly Father, than all the splendor and material wealth 
in millions of worlds. On account of our multiplied in- 
firmities in our earthly state, we fail to see or appre- 
ciate or enjoy the fulness of the fellowship of those who 
compose the mystical body of Christ. One of the sor- 
rows that comes to a humble and tender heart in this 
life is the clash of religious souls, the misunderstand- 
ings and the strife between those who really love Jesus, 
and the scarcity of broad-hearted and intelligent charity 
and fellowship. "We shall know each other better when 
the mists have cleared away." One of the great joys 



128 Bible Truth Library. 

that await us in the heavenly kingdom is that of the 
most entrancing love and mutual appreciation, with the 
glorified society of angels and saints. The reciprocal 
joys in the society of heaven can be faintly imagined 
from the following considerations: We shall have a 
perfect and instantaneous recognition of every individu- 
al saint, and probably every angel, of all the countless 
millions in the kingdom of heaven. Scripture tells us 
that "we shall know even as also we are known," and 
again, "that we shall see eye to eye when the Lord 
brings again Zion." The apostles at the transfiguration 
recognized Moses and Elijah, whom they had never seen. 
In our present state, most of our knowledge is acquired 
by the slow process of learning, but in the glorified state 
knowledge will come through the organ of intuition and 
by quick flashes of supernatural revelation. Hence the 
very moment we meet the blessed ones in heaven, we will 
know by spiritual instinct just who they are, their name, 
their personality, the great traits that make up their 
special character, and also know their rank in the heav- 
enly kingdom. What a joy will such recognition con- 
tain! 

Another form of this joy will be in the mutual, 
whole-hearted appreciation of each other's character and 
history, and of the variety of graces and gifts. In the 
Bible, God compares the righteous to various kinds of 
trees of the Lord's planting, such as the cedar, the box, 
the myrtle, the oak, the vine, the palm tree, the olive, 
and the orange, each of which has a special growth and 
beauty, a special perfume, ornament and utility. The 
saints axe also compared to various precious stones, as 



The Heavenly Life. 129 

the diamond, the emerald, the ruby, the amethyst, and 
others that make up the twelve distinct kinds of gems — 
"the living stones" that go into the structure of the New- 
Jerusalem. No imagination we now have can calculate 
the delicate and multiplied joys we shall have in heaven, 
flowing out from the appreciation of all the varieties 
of the saints of all ages. Those whose gifts and traits of 
character, of calling and life work, were so unlike and 
seemingly so opposite while on earth, will in heaven be 
perfectly understood, appreciated and mutually loved 
and honored with a most intelligent and generous appre- 
ciation. To mingle in those radiant throngs will be like 
walking through a divine flower garden, where there h 
an infinite variety of flowers, each adorned with sepa- 
rate beauty and decked in a shade of singular color, and 
emitting a peculiar perfume belonging only to itself, 
and each one essential to the perfection of the entire 
garden. 

Many of the things for which God-loving souls are 
now hated, ostracised, criticised, and misunderstood, will 
then blossom forth in such light and grace and fra- 
grance, as to make them more appreciated and more ten- 
derly loved. In many ways, the bruises of earth will 
make the perfumes of heaven. Again, our joy in glori- 
fied society will be intensified by a personal love for each 
and every one in the kingdom of heaven. Our affections 
will not be blind and indiscriminate, but so strengthened 
and expanded in divine love, that, like God, there will 
be in us a particular form of love for eveTy separate an- 
gel and saint. In addition to all this, there will be spe- 
cial circles of heavenly friendship, in which the count- 



130 Bible Truth Library. 

less throngs of the redeemed will be in various ranks 
and companies. Paul says that in the resurrection the 
saints shall be like the stars, and that "one star differs 
from another star in glory " The stars go in families 
and circles and various magnitudes. There will be thous- 
ands of ranks and degrees of reward, of honor and ca- 
pacity in heaven. Jesus, when on earth, had His special 
friends, and an inner circle with whom He had naturally 
more private and personal fellowship. Jesus had a per- 
fect human nature, and in accordance therewith He had 
His private and personal friendships, the same as angels 
and saints; and this, instead of being a hindrance in 
any way to His virtues and graces, was an essential part 
of the very perfection of His humanity. The bliss of 
the heavenly state will be heightened from the fact that 
there will be circles and families and bands and differ- 
ent ranks of angels and saints > who are specially kindred 
spirits, with similar gifts and tastes and ministries. This 
is beautifully set forth by the different gates and various 
foundations and the diversified precious stones that 
make up the New Jerusalem. Each glorified soul will 
find endless joy in this heavenly variety, and yet a more 
private and hidden joy in its own circle of kindred 
spirits. 

Another feature of glorified social joy will be the 
utterly unselfish delight we will have in the happiness of 
others. The purest joy that we can have on earth is that 
of making others happy, and the gladness we have in 
seeing them so. A mother enjoys the happiness of her 
little children, and to see them glad is a greater joy to 
her than to the children themselves. That eminent 



The Heavenly Life. 131 

eaint, Alfred Cookman, in one of his letters, gives an 
account of visiting the Christian home of a young mar- 
ried couple and tells us that as he saw their happiness 
with each other in their new home, he felt a most ex- 
quisite delight spring up in his heart, to see their joys, 
and that he felt as if the pure gladness of their young 
hearts in a transcendent way had become his own hap- 
piness. This will constitute one of the joys of heaven, 
that we will feel an unutterable galdness in seeing others 
rewarded, and in the beauty of their crowns, and the 
honor of their various ranks, and in the richness of their 
multiplied gifts, and thus our joy in the blessedness of 
others will be multiplied as many times as there are 
happy spirits in the countless hosts of our Father's 
kingdom. 

5. The Joys of Glorified Service. The activities of 
the glorified state, the lofty responsibilities with which 
we shall be invested, the thrones of authority to which 
we may be appointed, the delicate and solemn steward- 
ship entrusted to our hands, the exercise of all our fac- 
ulties in carrying out the plans of our heavenly Father, 
the songs we shall sing, the entrancing music that our 
fingers will sweep from golden harps, the melodious hal- 
lelujahs of praise that our immortal voices will pour 
forth, with the diapason thunder roll of the organ of 
eternity, will form one of the mighty streams of heavenly 

joy. 

The story is told of a company of monks, debating 
among themselves as to what would be the greatest joy in 
heaven, and several having given their opinion, they ask- 
ed the quiet old Thomas a'Kempis his opinion, and he 



132 Bible Truth Library. 

pointed to that verse in Kevelation, "His servants shall 
serve Him." Nowhere in the Bible is it represented that 
the spirits of departed saints in Paradise are engaged 
in active service while their bodies sleep in death, but 
their condition is spoken of as "resting" and "being 
comforted." But at the second coming of Jesus, when 
the saints rise in the first resurrection, there are scores 
of Scripture passages that describe the powers, the activ- 
ities and ministries of the glorified saints, as coming 
back from the wedding supper with Jesus (Kev. 19 :11, 
14), and as taking part with Christ in judging the 
world, and the wicked nations (Psa. 149:5-9), and as 
sitting with Christ on His millennial throne (Luke 22 : 
28-30 and Eev. 2 :26, 27), and as exercising authority as 
princes and priests over all nations during t the thousand* 
year reign of Christ (Eev. 20:4-6 and Dan. 7:27) ; all 
of which opens up to us the peculiar joys of heavenly 
royalty. There is a joy in the handling of great wealth,, 
and in the exercise of authority and power, which, when 
it shall be absolutely free from all self-seeking, from all 
foolishness or severity or indiscretion, and exercised in 
boundless love and wisdom, will be indeed a royal joy 
and a drop from that infinite happiness that God has in 
the exercise of His absolute dominion over all His crea- 
tion. The saints will enjoy their rewards, and as the 
songs of the reapers in the harvest field attest their glad- 
ness in gathering the golden grain, so at the end of this 
age, when the harvest of the precious blood is reaped, 
and the rewards are given to God's faithful ones, they 
will not be empty honors, but various kinds of substan- 
tial happiness. And beyond the millennium, the glori- 



The Heavenly Life. 133 

fied saints will have an immense service of ministry to 
many worlds and generations in the ever-increasing 
kingdom of God ; for we are told in the Greek that God 
will show forth "His glory in the church, by Christ Je- 
sus, throughout all the generations of the age of the 
ages." Eph. 3:21. 

6. The Joy of the Beatific Vision. To see God's 
face in cloudless light, to gaze in rapturous adoration 
upon the unimaginable beauties of the countenance of 
the Almighty, will be the crown, the uttermost limit, of 
all the joys of heaven. All the pleasures of our glorified 
senses, and the delights of our illuminated intellects, 
and the expansion of our faculties in the resurrected 
state, and the sweet meltings of celestial love, and the 
gladness of heavenly society, and of our multiplied min- 
istries, are but twilight joys, are but the outer fringes 
of heavenly bliss, compared with that ecstatic awe, that 
ineffable gladness of seeing the face of Ood. We shall 
see the glory of the three divine Persons beaming from 
the face of our blessed Lord Jesus. And then, through 
the avenue of His glorified humanity, our spiritual eyes 
will gaze undazzled on the three personalities in the 
blazing fires of the Godhead, each distinctly recognized 
and adored and loved, with such heavenly passion of joy 
as would burst the vessels of our created natures, unless 
they were girded with glorified capacities. We shall see 
the eternal generation of the Son in the bosom of the 
Father, and we shall watch the ever-radiant procession 
of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, like a 
gulf stream of whitest fire, ever streaming forth as it 
did before the worlds were made, as it flows now and 



134 Bible Truth Library. 

will continue to pour forth in an endless flow of the 
mutual love of the Father and the Son to endless ages. 
We shall see the unity of the Divine essence, and the 
simplicity of the Divine nature, and all the beautiful at- 
tributes of the Divine character, shining in their un- 
changing beauty through all the changes of creation's 
history. We shall know the meaning and the full frui- 
tion of those crowning words, "Come, ye blessed of my 
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world," "enter thou into the joy of 
thy Lord." To feel Godl sensibly near us, and His spir- 
itual presence in us, is the greatest joy of earth ; so to 
see Him face to face will be the crowning joy of heaven. 

"When the last feeble step has been taken 

And the gates of that city appear, 
And the beautiful songs of the angels 

Float out on my listening ear; 
When all that now seems so mysterious 

Will be bright and as clear as the day, 
Then the toils of the road will seem nothing, 

When I get to the end of the way." 



PREACH THE LORD'S COMING. 
By E. P. Marvin. 

"There has been much error and fanaticism connect- 
ed with it." Yes, and with every other Bible doctrine. 
"Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." Most 
of the heresies of to-day come from the unsanctified 
learning of Post-millennialists, and most of the world- 
liness of the churches comes from those who say : "My 
Lord delayeth His coming." 

"Well, we know all men must die, and death is the 
Lord's coming to me." 

Two mistakes. It is declared in the New Testament 
that we shall not all die, but a generation of saints will 
go like Enoch and Elijah, and no two events stand in 
stronger contrast than death and our Lord's coming. 

"But if I am a Christian shall I not be saved and 
all right?" You will be saved, but not all right, for 
your crown of reward, unless you obey the plain and re- 
peated command to watch. 

"The prophecies are mysterious, and I really do not 
get time to study this subject of the Lord's coming." 

About one-third of this whole Bible is prophecy. 
Will you neglect or slight this third of God's revela- 
tion? 

Take time, dear brother, from something else of less 

(135) 



136 Bible Truth Library. 

importance and study this subject, now rising into sucJi 
towering prominence. Stop trying to run the world and 
all sorts of societies and clubs in the church. 

The Jews were reproved again and again for not 
studying and understanding their own prophecies. In- 
deed, it was on account of this neglect and blindness 
that they rejected and crucified the Lord. 

A special benediction is pronounced on him that 
readeth and heareth the great prophetic book of the 
New Testament. Eev. 1 :3. Perhaps if we should put 
this doctrine into the form of a popular novel and in- 
fuse it with heresy, some of our preachers would find 
time to read it and give it a pulpit boom. 

"But it paralyzes missions and cuts the nerve of 
Christian endeavor." 

How can truth paralyze the cause of truth? The 
proud fiction of taking the world for Christ cannot 
do as much good as the truth. But the most practical 
answer to this objection to preaching the Lord's com- 
ing can be found in lives, such as those of Spurgeon, 
Guinness, Muller, Hudson Taylor, and nearly all the 
evangelists in the world, as well as most of those now 
going to foreign missions. 

"I do not want to make a hobby of it." Very well, 
but how many times have you preached upon it ? "I do 
not know as I have ever done it at all." Then do not 
fear as yet. 

"Well, it makes the gospel a failure and Christianity 
a defeated power." 

If the gospel had promised the conversion of the 
world in this dispensation, or even any one nation of 



Preach the Lord's Coming 137 

the world, it would have been a most dismal failure for 
the last eighteen hundred years. 

It promised an election of grace, a Gentile Bride 
called out of the nations for the Son of God. 

It has succeeded in the purpose for which it was 
sent. Acts 15 :14-17 ; Luke 19 :13. 

Post-millennarians make the gospel a failure. 

Never has any country, city or hamlet been "taken 
for Christ/' 

All who labor faithfully to fulfill the Great Com- 
mission will attain a triumphant success and a glori- 
ous reward. 

It is not true among sinners that "all truth has 
power to authenticate itself." Men do not take the 
remedy and on this account are lost. 

Christ and the Apostles never staked the truth of 
Christianity on its prevalence. Mohammedanism has 
made far more rapid progress than Christianity, and 
Buddhism has far more adherents. A religion may 
spread, either because of its truth that appeals to the 
higher nature of man, or because of its error that ap- 
peals to his baser nature. 

Success is doing your duty. Faithfulness brings the 
reward. Matt. 25 :21. 

Let me kindly and earnestly entreat my brethren 
in the gospel ministry to candidly and prayerfully con- 
sider the following reasons for preaching the Coming 
of the Lord : 

1. Christ and the Apostles command us to preach 
the whole truth, and especially this part of revelation. 
Acts. 20:26-27; Tit. 2:15; Eev. 22:10. 



138 Bible Truth Library. 

2. Christ and the Apostles preached it almost con- 
stantly, speaking of it in the New Testament more than 
300 times. The Apostles preached, not "Jesus and 
death," but "Jesus and the resurrection." 

Almost every page presents examples. 
The Old Testament speaks of the Second Coming 
more than ten times as often as of the First Coming. 
The Apostolic Church held and taught the imminence 
of the Lord's coming and watched for it. 1 Cor. 1 :7 ; 1 
Thess. 1 :9-10. They would have doubted the piety of 
one who did not love his appearing. 2 Tim. 4:8. 

3. We sin at a dear rate if for sinister motives we 
neglect to study and preach this doctrine. Never be- 
fore was so much clear light thrown upon it, and never 
before were we so near this grand event. It requires 
strong willfulness to shut the eyes to this flood of light 
now overflowing Christendom. Luke 12:47; John 12: 
35; Eev. 22:18-19. 

Wonderful progress is being made in these last 
times in the study and interpretation of prophecy. 

4. We may well fear a blight on our ministry for 
this neglect, and we shall certainly suffer loss when the 
Lord comes, if we are unfaithful heralds of His com- 
ing. It is already manifest that the evangelists and 
ministers who love and preach "that blessed hope" are 
most blest in winning souls and edifying the body of 
Christ. They preach a full, rich gospel. The most 
heavenly man of the Old Testament is Daniel, and of 
the New Testament the Prophet John, the special 
prophets of the Lord's Second Coming. Study prayer- 
fully Matt. 7:22-27; 24:48-51; Heb. 9:28; 10:25-37. 



Preach the Lord's Coming 139 

May God save us from the fate of those who do not 
"look for Him," nor "love His Appearing." Who can 
tell what it will be ? 

5. This is "present truth" of ever-increasing mo- 
ment and fitting adaptation to the times, as "we see the 
day approaching." 

Some truths are always equally important, while oth- 
ers have a special, temporary or local importance. The 
ministry of Enoch, Noah, Jonah, Lot and John the 
Baptist pertains to the latter class. As God heralded 
judgments and warned men through them, so in these 
"last times" no small part of our ministry should herald, 

"The King that comes in mercy ; 

The King that comes in might; 
To terminate the evil 

And diadem the right." 

Matt. 24 :45-46 ; 16 :3 ; 25 :6. The Holy Spirit shows 
us things to come. John 14 :26. 

6. Preaching the imminence of the Lord's coming 
is a vehicle of reviving power for the Laodicean church, 
and of salvation for sinners. Enoch used it with the 
Ante-diluvian apostates. Jude, 14:15. 

If the professing church had been blessed with a 
faithful ministry and leadership in the teaching and 
preaching of this "Blessed Hope," it would not have 
been in its present unbelief and worldliness. 

This is emphatically a separating and a purifying 
hope. It Separates, Consecrates and Concentrates its 
devotees. I do not know a church in which this blessed 



140 Bible Truth Library. 

hope is faithfully preached and vitally believed that has 
dancers, card players or theater goers in it, or that would 
hold a fair, festival or entertainment to raise money. 

If anything can arouse the Bride from her slumbers, 
her frivolity, or from dallying in the lap of the Christ- 
rejecting would, it must be the advent cries of the com- 
ing Bridegroom, Judge and King, scattered all through 
the New Testament, and surely nothing can arouse the 
sinner like the solemn proclamation of that day of wrath 
which will come as a snare, like a thief, like a flash of 
lightning! "Maranatha" should be our watchword in 
these last times. 

7. This proclamation is a prophetic means of has- 
tening the coming, the crowning and the kingdom. It 
helps to bring in the Gentile Bride, by stimulating to the 
fulfillment of the great commission. Matt. 24:14; 2 
Pet. 3 :12. 

Directly contrary to the theory of some who oppose 
us, or at least fear evil from our doctrine, the preaching 
of it by pastors, evangelists and missionaries has been 
used of God as the chief means of reviving the mission- 
ary spirit of the present generation. Its rare and reviv- 
ing power is filling the world with devoted missionaries 
and loving evangelists. Study it and preach it, my 
brother. 



KADESH-BARNEA. 

REV. EVAN H. HOPKINS. 

Where and What was Kadesh-Barnea? 
Text, Dent. 1 :19. 

In the second verse of this chapter, in a parenthesis ; 
we are told that it was a place eleven days' journey from 
Horeb. But that does not greatly help us. What was 
Kadesh-Barnea? Where was it? What were its char- 
acteristics ? Kadesh-Barnea lay upon the southern fron- 
tier of Canaan, just where the rolling downs of South- 
ern Canaan descended into the desert sand, just there 
upon the frontier, on the borderland between Canaan 
and the terrible wilderness. 

Israel had spent a whole year at Horeb. There the 
undisciplined rabble had become a marshalled army; 
there they had put away many of the customs and habits 
which had clung to them from long association with the 
Egyptians, and as God's sacramental host they had 
passed out of the wonderful natural temple constituted 
by the mountains of Sinai, and across the desert waste. 
Ah, how glad their hearts were — what a quiver of joy 
passed through the host from the foremost to the rear- 
most ranks, as they cried, "We are reaching the land; 

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1-12 Bible Truth Library. 

we are coming near to the hills of Canaan;" and when 
they could descry in the dim blue mist the outlines at 
last of the rolling country which they knew was covered 
with vineyards, olive-yards, and pasture-lands ! 

It must have been as grateful to these weary people, 
who had spent these months in gazing only upon ragged 
crags and traversing the sand dunes, to see those outlines 
of the hills of Canaan, as it was afterwards to the crew 
of Columbus to turn their gaze from the weary waste of 
waters to descry the outlines of the fair country that he 
sought. Oh, the joy of it! Oh, the triumph of it, to 
feel that the desert was behind, that Canaan was really 
in front, that a few more days must pass, and only 3 
few, before they stood within their inheritance, the land 
which God had bound Himself to give to their fathers. 
Oh, blessed, blessed vision! Up came Moses, the law- 
giver, the princes of Israel, the warriors, the priests, the 
Levites with their sacred burden, the women with the 
children — they all came at last up from the desert, and 
felt beneath their feet the soft sward of Palestine that 
seemed to announce that at last their long, weary jour- 
ney was at an end. 

They did not realize that they were to retreat from 
that point, and go back again into the wilderness from 
which they were emerging. It never entered their minds 
to suppose that forty years of wandering were to inter- 
vene between that moment and the other moment when 
they should cross the Jordan to inherit the land/ They 
little deemed that one by one all that host, which seemed 
like the flowers upon the meadows of May, was to fall 
before the reaper's scythe of death ; that two only were 



Eadesh-Barnea. 143 

to enter the land; and that their children, who were 
growing up around them, young men and women under 
the age of twenty, were to take their own place before 
God's promise was fulfilled. 

All this, of course, is intended to supply some deep 
lesson for ourselves. Probably there is not one person 
who is truly converted to God that has not at some time 
come to Kadesh^Barnea. Some have come thither and 
passed that way into the land of promise. Some have 
come thither and settled down, and remain always be- 
tween the desert on the one hand and the land of rest on 
the other, sometimes making an incursion into the one 
and then an incursion into the other, but living a border 
life between them. Perhaps some years ago you came to 
Kadesh-barnea, but were bidden to retreat from it. Per- 
haps you look back upon one radiant moment when you 
were nearer God, nearer rest, nearer peace, nearer the 
fruition of the perfect life than you have ever been since. 
Since that moment you have been treading again the 
desert waste, and have known the infinite bitterness of 
its restlessness, its weariness, its hunger and thirst. 
Every soul in the course of its pilgrimage comes pres- 
ently to Kadesh-barnea. 

Let us be very precise that we make no mistake. 
Kadesh-barnea does not stand for regeneration. Eegen- 
eration may be set forth in the fact that Israel in 
Egypt was God's child, though bound beneath the bond- 
age of Pharaoh and groaning beneath the tale of bricks, 
often lashed by the scourge — the cruel knout. There- 
fore, whatever Kadesh-barnea stands for, it does not 
represent the fact of the new birth by the Word and 



144 Bible Truth Library, 

Spirit of God- You must be born again before you can 
come to Kadesh-barnea; but you may have been born 
again and yet never have come out of Egypt; or you 
may have come out of Egypt and reached Sinai and 
never come to Kadesh-barnea. It is not enough for you 
to say that you are God's children ; there are heights be- 
yond depths of experience, much more to know and ex- 
perience. 

Kadesh-barnea does not stand for redemption by 
blood. This is set forth by the Paschal Lamb, the 
sprinkled blood, the exodus in that night which was 
much to be remembered. The people needed to be re- 
deemed before they could come to Kadesh-barnea,but be- 
ing redeemed did not necessarily involve the attainment 
of Kadesh-barnea. Is it not so with you? You may 
have been born from above; may know what it is to 
have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and yet there 
is something beyond in your experience. You have nev- 
er come to Kadesh-barnea. 

I. What, then, Does Kadesh-barnea Stand for ? 

It stands for that moment in a man's life when he 
has the opportunity of forsaking the wilderness and en- 
tering into the land of rest. And what does the wil- 
derness stand for? 

(1) Kadesh is rest. The wilderness stands for pur- 
poseless wandering. If you were to trace, with the help 
of the Book of Numbers, which enumerates the succes- 
sive encampments of Israel, the course of the people 
through the wilderness, you would find it was zigzag, 
backwards and forwards, again and again going over 
the same ground, making no regular advance towards 



Kadesli-Bamea. 145 

their goal. So it is in much of our life. There is too 
much purposeless wandering. We start up to do a deed 
for God, but presently fail in it, relinquish our activity, 
and drop back into inertia. We say to ourselves: We 
will be pure, and strong, and holy ; but after awhile the 
wing flags, the speed stays, and we, who have burned for 
a moment like seraphs, search vainly our hearts to find 
one spark of light and heat. How much of our life has 
been filled with these zigzag and unsatisfactory expe- 
riences, tracing and retracing, always learning the same 
lessons, sitting on the same form, put back to the old 
experiences, but never coming to the knowledge of the 
truth! 

Kadesh-barnea, on the other hand, stands for the 
moment in a man's life when he for evermore quits and 
leaves this wretched, unsatisfactory experience, and with 
a purpose in his heart, cries : "Leaving the things that 
are behind, I press towards the goal for the prize of my 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

(2) Kadesh stands for satisfaction. The wilder- 
ness stands for want, for unsatisfied longing. God suf- 
fered them to hunger and thirst. It seems as though 
they were never content. Whatever God did for them 
or did not do, they murmured at it. However lavishly 
He spread their table, they longed for the leeks and 
garlicks and onions of the Nile. Why did He not let 
us die in the wilderness ? Why did He not allow us to 
find our graves in Egypt? Why has He brought us here 
to die of thirst and hunger? Oh, the constant dissatis- 
faction of the wilderness life. This has had its coun- 
terpart with each of us, always thirsting for satisfac- 



146 Bible Truth Library. 

tion; but, as in the fable of Tantalus, the water always 
evading the thirsty lips which are put down to slake 
their burning fever; always going to the well to draw, 
and bringing the water back in a leaking pitcher, which 
as we reach home is found to be empty ; always gathering 
the apples which turn out to be rotten; — the apples of 
Sodom. Oh, how often we have thought, if God were 
to give me this, all my days would be filled with music, 
with the light and warmth of summer ! but when God 
has given our heart's desire, leanness has come into our 
soul. 

But Kadesh-barnea is the moment in a man's life 
when he leaves behind the dissatisfaction, the desires 
which are never perfectly at rest, when he discovers the 
truth of what Jesus said: "He that drinketh of the 
water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but it 
shall be in him a spring of water rising up into everlast- 
ing life." 

(3) Kadesh stands for Victory. The wilderness 
stands for failure and defeat. The enemies sweep 
around the camp and cut off the stragglers ; Israel is not 
able to hold its own against Amalek, or if it does for a 
brief interval, then Amalek, which stands for the flesh, 
presently gathers to itself new force and overcomes. The 
wilderness is always the land of defeat. You prize your- 
self that you are going to conquer this time — you even 
pray that you may ; you vow that you will ; you wonder 
that you have ever yielded before ; you argue with your- 
self against ever yielding again ; you say to yourself : "I 
shall not yield this time, I will be strong; why can I 
not be man enough to put my foot upon the neck of this 



Kadesh-Barnea 147 

evil thing? Why should I not be a conqueror?" You 
go into the battle full of self-confidence ; but before ever 
the battle has waxed hot you find yourself trampled in 
the very dust of defeat; your brave weapons are broken 
around you, your armor hacked through and splintered 
to pieces. But Kadesh-barnea is the point in a man's 
life when he leaves behind this weary experience of de- 
feat, and enters into that life of victory where no evil 
thing is able to stand against him, and he goes from 
victory to victory through Him that loved him. 

Where are you today ? Are you still in the wilderness 
of purposeless wandering; still hungering and thirst- 
ing; still vanquished and overcome? 0, poor soul, why 
should you not this very day come up to Kadesh-barnea, 
not merely to touch it and see the land beyond, not to so- 
journ in its homes for one brief hour, but to live there, 
and to make it the starting-point from which you should 
go forward into ever new experience of the rest, satis- 
faction, and victory which accrue from faith? That, 
then, is what Kadesh-barnea stands for. Have you 
passed it, or are you living in it, or have you not come 
to it as yet? 

II. What Made the Difference in the Experi- 
ence oe the People that Visited Kadesh-barnea? 

The answer is certain — Unbelief, which showed it- 
self in many ways. First, it manifested itself by send- 
ing the spies to examine the land. Surely that was a 
great mistake. When God gives aught to us, we should 
receive it without inquiring as to its worth and value. 
The fact that God had promised to give this land, and 
that He had pledged His troth that it flowed with milk 



148 Bible Truth Library. 

and honey, was surely enough to silence every question. 
How came it that they spied out the land? Was not 
that very impertinent act of theirs a confession that 
they did not perfectly trust the Word of God ? 

The second manifestation of the spirit of unbelief 
was that, through the eyes of the ten spies, they consid- 
ered its cities and the giants to the exclusion of God. 
There were giants certainly, and cities walled up to heav- 
en; there were immense difficulties confronting them, 
which might be viewed in different ways. The ten, who 
followed the devices of their own hearts, spelled giants 
with a capital 0, and God with a little g. But the two, 
though they saw these difficulties, had such a view of 
God's omnipotence that they spelt giant with a little g, 
and God with a capital. God filled their horizon; God 
seemed all-sufficient for their need; and they said, If 
He delight in us, He is well able to bring us in and give 
us the land. It was the difference between unbelief 
and faith, between looking at circumstances first and 
God second, or looking at God first and circumstances 
afterwards ; the difference that comes to all of us is as to 
whether we are going to magnify the difficulty or magni- 
fy the name of Jehovah, who does wonderful things for 
those who trust Him. 

Have you learned this elementary lesson? It seems 
impossible that you should ever move with a direct in- 
tention towards the goal of your life; that you will ever 
be satisfied in this world; that you should ever cease 
from being overcome by your enemies or have the vic- 
tory; but if you will learn the lesson of today, and no 
longer count on your poor resources, but live looking 



Kadesh-Barnea. 149 

for everything from God, then you will have 
rest and victory. The moment your soul hangs 
on God and expects everything from Him, you leave the 
Kadesh-barnea behind forever, and enter into the land 
of rest where God is the one all-sufficient answer to every 
doubt and fear, every misgiving and dread. 

III. How Are We To Obtain this Faith that 
Carries TJs Beyond the Frontier into the Land oe 
Best? 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. iv.), we have it 
stated exactly : Cease from your own works. "He that is 
entered into his own rest, he also hath ceased from his 
own works, as God did from His." It is your own fussy 
activity which is invalidating everything. You remem- 
ber how, in the old mythologic fable, the goddess took 
her child and dipped him in the immortalizing river, 
and he was made impervious to any weapon, except at 
the heel by which she held him ; it was there he was shot 
with the fatal arrow. If you trust in God ninety-nine 
parts of a hundred, but in the hundredth part are relying 
on your own works, prayers, preparation or tears, you 
may depend upon it that that will invalidate everything. 
We get rest only when, by the grace of God, we cease 
from our own works that we may enter into His; and. 
having made Him first, begin to work, not up to His 
help, but down from it. Cease from your own works 
that you may work the works of God. Cease from your 
own energy that the energy of God may operate 
through you. Cease from self, that God may be all in 
all, and originate more abiding results than you could 
ever have achieved. 



150 Bible Truth Library. 

Cease from your sinful works. If there is any known 
sin in your life which you cherish, which you cuddle and 
fondle in your bosom, which you feel you want and will 
not renounce, remember, as long as it is not judged, it 
will invalidate your faith. You cannot trust God ab- 
solutely whilst you make provision for the flesh to ful- 
fil the lust thereof. You must, in the intention of your 
will and the choice of your heart, cease from sinful 
works. 

Cease from legal works. Too often we have sought 
to justify ourselves before God ; to do things which 
would make ourselves more pleasing in His sight; we 
have forgotten that our righteousnesses were as filthy 
rags. We, like Cain, have brought the fruits of our own 
producing. But we must put away our legal works, our 
own righteousness, our own efforts to sanctify ourselves. 
We are not saved by works, but created in Christ for 
them. 

Cease from selfish works. We must endeavor to be 
good, earnest, and obedient, not because of any profit 
that may accrue, but for God's sake and because it is 
right. 

Cease from your sinful works : from your legal works ; 
from works that have self as the pivot and centre. Have 
done with it all, and taking up the foot which has so 
long touched the shelving bottom of the beach, launch 
yourself upon the upbearing wave. You will never know 
what the buoyant water will do until you have trusted it. 
Let yourself go, and then, when God is all and in all, 
when you let God do in and through you the purpose of 
His will, then the wilderness life of the seventh of Bo- 



Kadesh-Barnea. 151 

mans is abandoned for the Canaan life of the eighth 
chapter; then you leave Kadesh-barnea for the Land of 
Promise. 

But if you refuse, there is nothing for it but for you 
to turn back and go for your forty years of wandering. 
A child? — Yes. Eedeemed? — Yes. Destined to go to 
heaven? Yes. But missing, fatally missing, that 
blessedness which in this life is within the reach of those 
who through faith and patience inherit the promises — 
Consecrated Life. 




CAREFUL CULLINGS 

FOR CHILDREN. 

By Set. and Its. L. L. Pickett. 
$1.00 $1.00 

This is a book that should be in every home. It 
contains chapters from a great many of the great 
writers of the world of whom we name some: Chap- 
ter on Debt, by Spurgeon; others by Rev. J. B. Cul- 
pepper, u Gilderoy, ,> Mrs. Morrow, Edward Markham, 
Jno. B. Gough, President Theodore Roosevelt, Mary 
Lowe Dickinson, and Rev. S. A. Steel. This book 
will make you laugh to hurt your sides and weep 
profusely. Below we submit a notice: 

CAREFUL CULLINGS FOR CHILDREN, by Rev. and Mrs. L. L. 

Pickett. Cloth. 237 pp. $1.00. Pickett Publishing Co., 

Louisville, Ky. 
This is the joint work of Bro. and Sister Pickett. Among the 
"cullings," however, there are several articles the product of their 
own pens, and a number of pictures of the little "Picketts on 
duty." Among the articles we find a number that will interest 
older folks ; in fact, the whole book is very suggestive and will 
serve to implant in the minds of any who read thoughts and prin- 
ciples that will inspire and build up. It has many things in it 
which read or repeated to younger members of the family or Sun- 
day-school will interest them and inform them on a number of very 
important things pertaining to their future happiness and success. 
— Central Methodist. 

PICKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

Louisville, Ky. Greenville, Tex. 



FAITH TONIC. 



Compiled by L. L. Pickett. 
Cloth, GOc. paper, 3Gc. 

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It contains the following chapters: 

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The Man that Died for Me Mrs. J. K. Barney 

Special Providence Anon 

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Cast Out, Yet not Forsaken The Christian 

The Drummer's Dream Rev. J. W. Pearson 

The Healing of Mary Theobald By her Pastor 

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Bishop Simpson's Recovery Bishop Bowman 

Something in Christianity after all Mrs. W. Searle 

Carletta Rev. E. P. Hammond 

Won't you Love my Jesus " " " 

Kept by the Power of God Weekly Witness 

A Prince in Israel Rev. A. Sims 

Reading the Appointments Rev. A. J. Hough 

A Minister's Consecration Rev. Henry Belden 

Banking on Oatmeal Rev. G. D. Watson 

Experience of Mrs. Lizzie R. Smith 

An Hour with George Muller Rev. C. R. Parsons 

I Know that Jesus Healed Me George Evison 

The Lord Controls the Locomotive Anon 

Wonderful Cure of Mrs. Sherman 

The Aid of the Lord in Business 

Charlie Coulson, the Drummer Boy 

The Story of Nellie Conroy 

An Actor's Conversion By Himself 

Rev. W. D. Akers, Professor in Asbury College, says: "The 
writer has read with great pleasure and profit a book com- 
piled by Rev. L. L. Pickett, entitled 'Faith Tonic.'' A more 
inspiring and helpful book it has not been our pleasure to 
read in many a day. It is appropriately named. It will 
prove a real tonic to faith. The chapters on 'Peniel Mission- 
ary Work,' 'Kept by the Power of God,' 'A Minister's Con- 
secration,' are worth far more than the price of the book." 
Two copies cloth, or 4 paper covers, 81.00. 

Agents wanted. 

Pickett Pub, Co., Louisville, Ky, 



BIBLE FRUIT, 



BEING A SERIES OF BIBLE READINGS, 



By L. L. PICKETT, 

ASSISTED IN THE SELECTIONS BY 

Rev. W. N. MATHENEY, 

To which are Chapters Contributed by Several 
Different Writers. 



CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER, 50c. 



1899. 

PICKETT PUBLISHING CO., 
LOTTISVTLLE, KY. 

Branch \ Greenville, Texas. 






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Pf*OVE$BS. 

"A Hew Book of Proverbs; or the Economy of Human Life." 

Yes, Proverbs. 

This is the title of a new book recently arranged 
for the press by Evangelist Luther R. Robinson. 
It is an entirely different book from anything now 
before the American people so far as is known, 
It is 

AN ANCIENT SYSTEM OF MORALITY 

containing hundreds of proverbs of marvelous pro- 
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of Solomon, yet treating many more different 
subjects. 

Every age, stage and condition in life, from the 
cradle to the grave, is treated in 

A MASTERLY AND PROVERBIAL 

way. This book will hold spell-bound all alike, 
old and young, rich and poor, learned or unlearned. 

Secure a copy and read till you laugh, shout 

and cryr 

A Fine Book For Your Children. 

CLOTH, 50c. PAP2ER,S5e* 

PICKETT PUB. CO., LOUISVILLE, KY. 

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper procesi 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnoIogie: 

a wobId leader in paper preservatic 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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